


Paved With Good Intentions

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: SHIELD Therapy [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: Steve had been lost in DC, and isn't sure of his future. Of course, that's when his past returns to haunt him.
Series: SHIELD Therapy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1446400
Comments: 63
Kudos: 32





	1. The Lemurian Star

Steve Rogers was splitting his time between Washington, DC and New York City. He was supposed to work on various cases for SHIELD, and it seemed like all the high profile ones. That wasn't anything he really enjoyed, but it kept him busy. Otherwise, too many memories of the past interrupted his thoughts. Natasha had come to DC as well, which kind of helped; she had a very dry and sarcastic humor that he appreciated, and took him around to all of the Smithsonian museums and landmarks. None of the SHIELD agents he worked with really spent much time with him outside of their missions.

"Hey," Natasha had said at one point as they were leaving the Air and Space museum. "You need more than just museum hopping and sketching things."

"I'm working through pop culture references," he said a little defensively.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "In isolation."

"I've gone to movie nights at the tower."

She rolled her eyes again. "And don't offer opinions." She shook her head firmly. "Did you at least talk to Celia?"

Sighing, Steve looked out beyond her to the crowds across the street. "Accounting, right?" At Natasha's nod, he shook his head. "Too loud."

Lifting an eyebrow, Natasha smirked. "Because she doesn't whisper when she talks?"

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do, but—"

"There's always spending time with Roger," Natasha suggested. "Celia has her art degree, at least, I figured you'd have that in common. Roger didn't even take a single art appreciation class in college."

Steve sighed and scrubbed his face. "You think I'm queer."

"I don't care," Natasha told him flatly. "If it turns into dates, great. But I really just want you to _talk_ to other people. You go to work or spend time with me. That's it. You need more friends, Steve."

Carefully looking at her expression, he nodded finally. "Okay, I get that. But I don't think I'm ready for... anything. Talking, dating, whatever."

Her expression gentled. "It can be lonely on your own sometimes, and I'm not always here."

He flashed her a smile he used to use on USO tours. "I can take care of myself."

"Of course. But you don't always have to, is what I'm saying. It's easier with help."

Steve clasped her hand and gave her a genuine smile that she returned. "Okay. I promise not to be a hermit."

Her smile was absolutely brilliant. "Fantastic." Her smile turned mischievous. "What about Claire, then?"

With a groan, Steve let go of her hand and shoved her shoulder. Natasha laughed and took off at a jog. It was an obvious invitation to chase her, so he followed.

She cared, he knew that. It wasn't just professional interest, it was actual friendship. He appreciated that, and the effort she kept putting in to help him open up and adjust. Sometimes he resented it, would rather wallow in the bittersweet memories of the past, the grief of all that he had lost. She knew about loss, would back off if he was feeling really low, and kept him from falling too deep into grief.

But sometimes he wanted that. He wanted that pain, the sharp hollow between his ribs. It was what he deserved, kept the past sharp in mind. He couldn't lose the Howlies, his Ma, old Brooklyn, or Bucky.

As much as it hurt to remember forgetting was worse. He couldn't afford to ever forget.

***

Jogging early in the morning cleared his head at times but his gut felt twisted into knots this was a new age, no one would care if he was queer or not, if he liked men or women or both or nothing at all. The problem was that he himself didn't rightly know. Peggy was a fine dame, and he'd loved her, expecting something of a future together once the war was done. But there had been others before and after that he'd had eyes for, men and women both, and it had carried the vague sense of guilt and wrongness. There had been the underground back then, he'd known all about its members and been peripherally part of it. He'd never gone through with anything because of his health, never knowing if an asthma attack would kill the mood and any attempt at romance. After the vita rays, there hadn't been time. He wanted time, that was only fair; fumbling in the dark for stolen seconds of pleasure felt wrong somehow. He'd want to romance a lover, savor them, really appreciate the gift he was given.

Lapping a runner ahead of him dragged him out of the morose thoughts. "On your left!" he called, in case the jogger would careen into his path. The black man shot him a glance the first time, didn't do a double take. Classic features he'd loved to sketch back in the day. Maybe he'd do it from memory later in the day. but then he recalled Natasha's words the day before about being alone, and Steve circled back to lap the man again. "On your left!"

"Oh, come on!" Steve heard him say, and grinned to himself. The voice sounded fluid and warm, with a hearty strength to it. He wanted to hear it again.

He was being a little shit, he absolutely knew it, and if Bucky was around he'd call him a punk and smack him for it. But no one was around to stop him, and Natasha would encourage him to keep it up.

Finally, he caught up to the man who'd collapsed against a tree. Steve had been recognized after all, which was disappointing, but the man redeemed himself by proving he was military as well. He'd understand abruptness, dead eyed stares, things he could never explain, even to himself. Sam didn't make fun of his notebook, and even had suggestions for it. Swapping information gave him a sense that yes, he was capable of making friends on his own, thank you very much, he didn't need Natasha doing all the work for him.

Steve checked his phone and saw Natasha texting him regarding another mission. "You don't seem too thrilled about that text," Sam observed.

"It's work."

"You don't like it?"

"It's work," Steve repeated.

"I'd've thought you could pick whatever you wanted to do." Sam leaned on the tree to push himself to his feet and stand beside Steve.

"You'd think that, but funny how it doesn't work that way."

"Huh. You could probably throw your weight around and get something you actually enjoy."

Steve sighed and shook his head. "I'd have to actually care about options they'd give me."

"You don't?" Sam asked in surprise.

"Sounds terrible, doesn't it?" Steve asked quietly, shaking his head a bit.

Sam gave him a sympathetic look. "Sounds like maybe you don't really want to be there. Especially if you're laying it all out right away."

Grimacing, Steve sighed. "You're easy to talk to."

"Well, I'd hope so," Sam laughed. "I'm a therapist over at the VA. Maybe you should stop over sometime, sit in on a group."

"They're not exactly the same kind of war."

"War is war, man. Everybody loses," Sam said in a subdued tone. "There's no monopoly on grief. Or trauma."

"I'll think about it."

Sam grinned. "I know a soft no when I hear it."

Steve mirrored the smile. "Yeah, well, some days are better than others, and I don't want to promise anything I can't keep."

"Fair." Sam thumbed the road behind him. "I'm off."

A sleek black care pulled up, and Natasha slid the window down. "Hey fellas. Are you here from the Smithsonian? I'm here to pick up a fossil."

"Ha, ha," Steve intoned until he got to the car.

Sam still saw the faint smile on Steve's lips, and the wider smile that he flashed him. "Oh, so that's how it is?"

Steve was glad that Sam approached the car and picked up on the sarcasm and teasing he was comfortable with when hanging out with Natasha. "Yeah, that's how it is," Steve replied.

Rolling his eyes, Sam backed off. "I'll see you, man."

"Maybe."

"You make your way sometime," Sam insisted.

That wouldn't be a hardship, so Steve nodded. "Sure."

Of course that meant Natasha later chortled "I'm so proud of you, Steve. You made a _friend_ all by yourself. It's so wonderful!"

Steve nudged her arm in playful annoyance. "Fuck off, Romanoff."

She only laughed in response, the troll.

***

The Lemurian Star was a fail of epic proportions as far as Steve was concerned. Oh, civilians were saved, and Agent Sitwell survived even though Steve had no idea why he had even been there. Seeing Natasha there with a _separate mission_ she didn't tell him about was disappointing in a soul wrecking kind of way. Weren't they friends? And she kept trying to set him up on dates as if this was an ordinary mission.

 _I'm multitasking,_ she'd said. He didn't like this kind of multitasking.

Before they made it to the Triskelion for his debrief with Fury, she took him aside to a random hole in the wall eatery. He only stared at her, jaw set. "We have to go."

"Fury gave me that mission," she told him in a low tone, her expression more serious than he'd seen it in months. "Because of how I was trained – raised, sort of – I'm not supposed to have any limits." She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. "You know a bit. That's more than what most people know, but I barely scratched the surface with you. Not because I don't trust you, but because it hadn't been relevant before." She paused, dropping her hand and then licking her lips, eyes still trained on his face.

"There's a lot I don't know about missions I was sent on then. I simply don't remember, they saw to that. I had no limits. I had to be comfortable with everything. No personality other than what the mission commanded, because I wasn't a real person. I was a tool. I was a weapon."

Steve stared at her, managing not to gape. There were so many questions, so many painful details she simply elided over. "That's... that's horrible," he finally said. It sounded lame to his own ears, but she merely nodded. 

"I didn't know any different then. Fury knows this about me, and will ask me to do the things you can't be cause you won't compromise your values."

His mouth dropped open. "He thinks you have no values to compromise."

"I'm not supposed to," Natasha told him quietly. "I know this is no excuse," she said quickly when his jaw dropped again. "It's an explanation. I'm sorry I compromised your mission. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before—"

"Because Fury told you not to."

Natasha nodded. "But most of all, I'm sorry I destroyed our friendship." She met his eyes, allowing him to see the pain and genuine sense of loss she felt. "Whatever is on this flash drive is worth that to the Director, but not to me."

She was honest, he understood that. And she genuinely thought she'd destroyed their friendship, possibly because the only reference for friends she had was SHIELD agents and the Avengers. Maybe Shannon Tran, too. Otherwise, she was as alone as he was.

Reaching out to grasp her hands, he squeezed them. "Thank you for telling me this. I know it's hard for you."

Natasha flashed him a wry smile. "That's not supposed to matter."

"It does to me." He squeezed her hands again. "We're still friends. Strained, but that spy thing doesn't sit well with me."

"Yeah, you're a head in and bash heads kind of guy."

"Always worked for me before."

"It's a different kind of world, Steve," she told him sadly.

Not letting go of her hands, he gave her a stern glance. "Give me that flash drive."

"It's not for you."

"Or do we go into Fury's office to demand why he needs that?"

She pulled a face but didn't pull away. "I don't like this."

"Because it's too direct?"

"Because I don't think whatever is on there is good news."

Steve let out a slow breath. "And your instincts on this kind of thing aren't wrong are they?"

"Not usually."

"How much trouble are we going to be in if we skip the debriefing?"

Natasha's eyes twinkled. "So much. Is Captain America suggesting that we break a few rules?"

He found himself smiling at that tone. "What if I made it an order?"

She laughed. "Aye, aye, captain."

***

Bypassing their apartments, Natasha insisted that they buy all new clothing and go to New York by clandestine means. "Aren't you maybe a little _too_ paranoid?"

"Can you accept 'better safe than sorry?'" she asked. At his stare and crossed arms, she sighed. "I wouldn't put it past them to bug your apartment and clothes. You don't have a safe house, and I'm not bringing your potentially compromised uniform to mine. So, we get new things."

"And the uniform? That's not trash."

"No, that can go to your apartment or mine if you really need to. But we can't get tagged with this drive."

Steve blew out a slow breath. "Wow. This is a really lonely way to live."

Natasha shot him a sad smile. "Good way not to die, though."

He followed her directions at the mall, which was a rather terrifying exercise in spycraft. Useful, he knew, but it gave him an insight into her past that he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Mostly because it made him sad and angry, with no outlet to take it out on. Steve had always jumped into situations headfirst to right wrongs, and this was a profound wrong that had been perpetrated on hundreds of girls.

Uniform casually left at Natasha's apartment, they took a train from DC to Grand Central Station in New York. Steve looked at Natasha's calm demeanor with low key awe. "You don't trust them, even after all this time."

"Some lessons die hard," she admitted. "But there's always the sense that there's something more to it. Nothing I can really explain with evidence, but…"

When her voice trailed off, he nodded. "You gotta trust your gut."

"Yeah. Exactly that." She bit her lip and looked away from him, though there was nothing terribly interesting about the view as it rushed past. "There were too many protections. Too many systems to bypass. Security was too good. And Director Fury never even indicated to you that there might be more of worth than just the hostages."

"So you didn't get that bad vibe right away."

Natasha shook her head and looked back at Steve, leaning back in a manner that would seem nonchalant to any passerby. "It doesn't add up."

"But you trust Fury."

She nodded unhappily. "But he apparently doesn't trust me." Her voice was tiny and pained, making him reach out to take her hands. "It didn't matter who hired me when I first got out, because it didn't matter who did when I was a little girl. The money mattered. The equipment mattered. I did what I had to do to survive, and that was all I knew."

"Killing and spy stuff?"

Her smile at him was sad and amused at once. "The concept bothers you, doesn't it?"

"I know everybody's got it rough in different ways," he began slowly. "But I had people. Ma. Bucky. The rest of the Barnes family. Friends we all had..." He leaned back in his seat across from her and mimicked her posture. "I can't imagine not having a single soul."

"You did leave through it, too. When you woke up," she added at his blank look. "And being a better person than I am, you took out your frustration out on pummeling punching bags, not killing people for money."

"It wasn't frustration on your part."

She chuckled at his correction. "Okay, fine. I didn't like going hungry." She shrugged. "And fake ID's are expensive if you want them done right."

Steve couldn't help but laugh. "I always made do with the cheap stuff. Must be why I got thrown out of so many dance halls, huh?"

Natasha laughed along with him. "Ooh, Captain America's such a rebel."

"How d'you think I _became_ Captain America?" he laughed. "They weren't gonna give it to me. I kept applying to join the army until Dr. Erskine took pity on me."

"Not pity," she disagreed. "He saw the goodness in you, the drive to be better than you were."

"You have some of that drive, Nat," Steve pointed out gently.

It was sad but not surprising that the words seemed to startle her. Se didn't think of herself as good, only _performing_ good. Ultimately, it was really the same thing. She constantly chose the good thing, the hard thing, the right thing. Not everyone could do that, and Natasha consistently did.

"And you know I don't lie. Not about _that."_

She laughed again, a measure of hope in her eyes. If he believed in her, then maybe she could believe in herself, too.

***  
***


	2. Connections

Grand Central Station was as bustling as ever, as it was completely rebuilt after the Battle of New York. Natasha insisted on avoiding cabs and buses at this point. "It's not far, and I know you missed your run today."

Steve groaned. "You think it's all I do."

"Oh, I know it's not," Natasha said nonchalantly. He was instantly suspicious of that tone. "But I dragged you away from your new running buddy..."

"Nat, this isn't funny."

She laughed at his expression. "No, I'm not being a troll about it, honest. He's a good guy, and you need friends you actually like."

He goggled at her. "What?"

"I might've looked him up. To be sure he's okay," she added quickly, then scanned the intersection before continuing on their walk.

"I'm a good judge of character!"

"Yes, you are," she agreed. "But _I_ wanted to be sure."

"And what was that crack about people I actually like? You mean romance? I don't think I'm ready for that."

"Not just romance," Natasha murmured. It was still easy to hear her despite the traffic around them. "But we're all here because of a job. Of course you'd spend time with them. Friends outside of SHIELD or the Avengers would be good for you."

Steve sighed and grasped her wrist to keep the locked in step. "I don't hang out with you just because of work." She nodded, accepting that. "And the rest of them, I don't feel obligated. Maybe Tony sometimes," he added with a wry twist of his lips, "but I think he does that annoying act of his on purpose."

"Probably. He _is_ in therapy, though."

"That should do him a world of good."

Natasha was quiet for a moment. "I know we're not the same as the people you've lost."

"Yeah. It's hard to find people with the same shared life experiences."

She nodded as they walked at a brisk pace. "And you need to have something besides work."

"So says the one that does deep background checks in her free time."

"You should be better than me."

There was undoubtedly the opening to say _I already am,_ but Steve refused to take it. "I really do like you guys."

"Well, good," Natasha said with a smile. "But I'm still sorry you didn't get more time to bond with Sam."

Steve groaned. "No more matchmaking!"

Natasha laughed, a genuinely delighted one, making him feel a little better. "Not romantic, necessarily. I picked people that you might like getting to know as a friend, too! I kept to women only because of all the old newsreels and the stories in history books, but I can find you guy friends, too."

That made him think of Bucky, of a Brooklyn long gone, and his gut twisted. "I do appreciate that, but..."

She grinned. "I'm not giving up on you, Steve."

No, only herself, which was maddening. He slung an arm around her shoulders and laughed as if it was the funniest joke. "I'm glad someone hasn't," he said, which kept her grin in place. "So maybe I should return the favor."

The way her expression froze was either sad or funny, and he chose to think of it as funny. "C'mon, don't tell me you're scared of friends I'd pick for you."

"Considering the people you know?" She snorted indelicately. "The STRIKE team you work with isn't my style."

"Good to know, but they're not really my friends, either."

"I noticed."

Of course she did. The woman noticed _everything._

The rest of the walk to Tony's building was uneventful. The A on the side of the building was far more prominent now, which was probably why everyone had started calling it Avengers Tower in the news instead of Stark Tower. Steve hadn't been completely comfortable with the idea. That made it sound like a home for him, and he didn't really feel like he had a home anywhere anymore. He was a man out of time, displaced and without a center. He didn't know where he truly belonged, and didn't wat to give a false impression that he was closer to these people than he really was.

As they ascended in an elevator away from public view, it occurred to him that this was exactly why Natasha was trying so hard. She knew he felt alone and rudderless, and hoped she could help him make a connection with this time.

He really should've picked up on that sooner.

Natasha took them to an open space that clearly had been meant to be a common area for people. JARVIS greeted them warmly, informing them that Sir was still in session, but they could talk with other agents if they liked.

Just to prove a point to Natasha, Steve accepted before she could speak. Take that. He was _not_ a broody loner in need of intervention.

Agent Miguel Gray and a very pale, withdrawn looking Loki were in the kitchen and dining area with Wanda. He must have looked surprised, because Gray grinned at him. "Hey! Wanda's portals are getting better. The three of us through at once doesn't bother her any more."

Turning to the girl in question, Steve smiled fondly at her. "Sounds like you're getting really good at magic now."

"It's still a work in progress," she replied modestly, ducking her head.

"Keeping busy?" he asked.

Wanda nodded. "There are these studies and for the GED exam that Shannon and Gina insisted on. They also want me to take college courses."

"Probably a good idea. More skills to fall back on," Steve replied, assuming that _these studies_ meant magic. "How are your studies going?"

Loki was staring listlessly at the table top, and didn't move when Steve sat down beside him out of curiosity. Natasha was rummaging around in cabinets for a mug and tea bags. Wanda accepted the offer for tea, while Gray already had coffee. Loki remained mute. Natasha had told Steve about the debacle with his mother and Wanda months ago, and it was disturbing to see how broken and grieving Loki still was.

He startled when Wanda described how Loki had been the first test subject for her portals when she didn't know if it would remain open long enough or even support a full sized adult. Loki met Steve's shocked expression with a bland one of his own. "I am expendable, am I not?"

"Don't let Shannon hear you say that," Gray intoned.

"I've told her as much," Loki replied, no emotion in his voice or expression. His eyes, however, screamed in pain.

"Some people are better for particular missions," Steve said quietly. "Different skills, different needs. I'm sure not being expendable, but that you could bring yourself back if you went to the wrong place."

"On paper, certainly," Loki agreed blandly. "But that would have been impossible had I been cut in half."

"Then your brother would kill me," Wanda replied, though she was a bit paler. "Pietro would probably die trying to get revenge on Thor."

"As amusing as that might be, the useless death would be a pity," Loki replied.

The lack of emotion was disturbing for Steve. He recognized it, had seen it in dozens of men rescued from Azzano, had even seen it in the mirror when he was first brought back from the ice.

"Is this a common thing?" Steve asked, breaking the awkward silence. "The portals and hanging out for tea?"

"Weekly," Gray confirmed as Wanda nodded. Loki remained silent, staring at nothing. "Kind of an Avengers day, so you showing up fits." He held up a hand when Steve was about to open his mouth. "Don't worry, I won't ask what the Avengers business is. I get the NDA's."

Steve felt a spike of guilt for going along with Gray's assumption. At the same time, it would be impossible to really explain Natasha's gut instinct about that flash drive, his disappointment in Nick Fury's parallel missions, and his growing concerns about SHIELD. Something wasn't right about all this, though he didn't know what it was. A puzzle missing key pieces.

Natasha sipped her tea, letting Steve take the lead on this conversation. That was frustrating, he didn't know what to say. He still considered himself nothing more than a boy from Brooklyn playing at being a grown up, playing at being at war.

"It's complicated," he finally settled on. "I'm sure SHIELD cased are complicated to explain if you could."

Gray laughed easily. "Oh yeah, we have doozies."

"And you've got family," Steve murmured. "How you explain it all to them?"

He laughed easily again, a stark contrast to Loki's dour expression. "Oh, my parents know I work for the government. They don't even ask. My boyfriend is in HR for SHIELD. All he wants to know is if I get sent to medical or not." His brown eyes lit up happily, and his demeanor was easy to like. No subterfuge on this one.

Steve looked to Loki. "Is it difficult for you? Adjusting?"

Loki turned bleak and empty eyes to him. "I perform the job adequately."

"This world isn't like the one you knew," Steve said. He could feel the weight of Natasha's stare on his back. "It's difficult."

"As you would understand," Loki said, voice still strangely flat. "This world is not exactly your own, either."

"No, it isn't," Steve agreed.

"I have been learning empathy," Loki said abruptly. "It is quite unpleasant."

Offering a commiserating nod, Steve agreed. "Still important, though."

"As you say."

He paused for a moment. "What's therapy like?" he asked, brow furrowed. Loki didn't answer right away, so Steve clarified his question. "They had the talking cure in my day, but there were sanitoriums, too. People usually went there, didn't always come back. Some had tuberculosis, but some had neurosis. Nobody coming out ever talked about it."

"I am obviously not contained as such," Loki murmured. His eyes flicked to the others briefly, then back to Steve. "It is talking, yes. But assigned talk, and often involves an alternate perspective than my own."

Steve nodded thoughtfully. "I can see how that's helpful."

"Especially if my thoughts are not entirely accurate."

The others shifted slightly in their seats, but Steve only shrugged. "I suppose it's hard to tell if they're accurate or not until you talk it out. We don't always see the whole story."

"You work for a spy organization," Wanda pointed out. "I would think that few people ever know the whole story."

"I'm not really SHIELD," Steve protested.

At the same time, Gray shook his head. "I'm not that high up in clearance. Only enough to work with Loki, but not enough to know the details."

Wanda looked to Natasha, who was smirking into her tea. "I suppose you're higher up."

"You could say that," Natasha said with a smile.

"There's talk you're level nine," Gray remarked. He looked at Wanda. "Director Fury is level ten. That's as high as you can go."

"Someone also reads the old databases for fun," Steve added, nudging Natasha with his elbow.

Natasha grinned. "That's how _I_ gain perspective."

"For those of us that _don't_ hack databases for fun," Steve said with a friendly grin, "therapy sounds better."

"I suppose," Loki murmured when it seemed like they were expecting him to answer.

"Perhaps it could benefit you as well," Wanda said.

Before Steve could say anything, Loki straightened in his seat. "I would suggest finding someone other than Dr. Tran. She is rather overburdened as it is."

"Maybe she can recommend something," Steve replied with a shrug. "I'm in no hurry."

Loki leveled his gaze at Steve. "I see. I know of no others, but there are those who would be less than honorable."

"She'd mentioned that," Steve agreed.

"Yeah, your introduction to SHIELD was less than stellar," Natasha said, putting her mug on the table. "There's a lot of different factions within the organization. It's not exactly as cohesive as they like to portray."

All eyes shifted to Loki and Gray. "I'm not gonna disagree," Gray said with a shrug. "I'm not high up and it's too huge."

Loki shrugged. "I was coerced into this."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Shannon campaigned hard for that."

He flushed and looked away. "I suppose."

"She went directly to Fury about that. Completely out of line. And vouched for you personally."

At that, he looked almost ill. "She never said so."

"She wouldn't," Natasha replied quietly. "It's not her way."

"It's a move that helped you, I think," Steve remarked in the awkward silence. "You don't strike me as someone that can sit idle. You need to do something."

As he said the words, Steve was struck by how much that applied to him as well. It was the only reason he was even in DC.

Loki let out a haggard breath. "Is that so transparent?"

"Nah," Gray replied with a shrug, cutting off Steve. "You fell in with a bunch of overachievers." He paused, sipping his coffee thoughtfully. "Not me, though. Not sure how I got roped in."

"Perhaps your adoption status," Loki offered, eyes dropping to the table. "I can see Director Fury choosing that about you so I could _learn_ to accept it by example."

Gray pondered that for a moment, coffee mug poised in midair. "Huh. Yeah, I guess I can see Director Fury being sneaky like that. Head spy and all." He didn't sound upset about it, likely because he was too low level to be counted as a spy.

The silence was less awkward, but still present. It was soon broken by the sound of footsteps, and Tony Stark appeared. He was very casually dressed in jeans and an Iron Maiden T shirt, goatee a little ragged looking. Without looking at the others, he made a beeline for the coffeepot and poured himself an obscene amount in a large mug.

"Rough session?" Gray asked sympathetically.

"Some days are harder than others," Tony replied without looking up. "Today was fucked up." He took deep gulps of the coffee and then turned around, visibly slapping a pleasant expression onto his face. "So. Unofficial SHIELD business? Avengers business? 'Cause you two don't really do social calls."

Steve grimaced. "Sorry, Tony, I'll try to do better."

Tony snorted, then chugged more coffee. "No need for guilt tripping, Capsicle. They've got you doing important things, I'm sure," he said. Turning to Loki, he shot him a commiserating expression. "Your turn, Horns."

It probably shouldn't have surprised Steve that Loki could get up and go on his own. JARVIS could track his movements, after all, and this clearly was an arrangement they were used to.

"I may have something you'd like to try cracking in a closed box situation," Natasha told Tony, serenely sipping her tea as if there were no qualms about the flash drive's contents and origins.

Tony lit up. "Really? You bring me presents? And it's not even my birthday!"

She smiled fondly at him. "I figured you'd like it. And have a cold system."

Gray eyed Wanda. "Is this where we leave the room?"

"Nah." Tony looked far less devastated now. "This is where _I_ leave the room and go play with my new toy."

Natasha rolled her eyes as she smiled and handed over the flash drive. "It's the only copy, don't play rough and break it."

"Ooh, that's serious trust right there, Romanoff," Tony teased.

"Yes, it is," Natasha told him seriously.

That sobered him a bit, and he nodded as he palmed the drive. "J," he announced. "Lab 7, get the coffee going. Daddy's got homework."

"Yes, Sir," JARVIS announced in his driest tone. "I will inform Miss Potts as well."

Tony winced. "Shit. Lunch was today?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Ooh," he winced again. Looking over at Natasha and Steve, he flashed them an apologetic look. "Can it wait a bit?"

Steve nodded uncertainly as Natasha waved him off with a negligent grin. "Tell Pepper we said hi," she said warmly.

He flashed them a grateful look and rushed out to change, still gripping the coffee mug and flash drive in each hand.

"Should we be worried?" Steve asked Natasha.

"Nah. He's probably going to ponder what algorhythm he wants to try first, then manage to crack it an hour after he starts."

Gray snickered. "You have him pegged, don't you?"

"I had to submit a personality report about him to Director Fury for the Avengers Initiative," Natasha replied nonchalantly. She sipped her tea as the others stared at her. "I haven't forgotten what I wrote."

"Does this mean you made a report of me?" Wanda asked.

"No," Natasha replied, shaking her head. "It was only for each of the preliminary subjects he was thinking of."

"You included?" Gray asked.

"I was never meant to be an Avenger," Natasha disagreed.

"I'd say you're an important part of the team," Steve said.

"Nice of you to say so."

"It's true. You brought us all together."

"Team Mom, I guess," Gray joked. "Does this make you the Team Dad?" Gray teased, turning toward Steve.

Steve wrinkled his nose in distaste as Natasha laughed at him. "Oh, God, please don't."

"We have plenty enough old man jokes," Natasha said, bumping shoulders with him. "There's a lot of dad jokes you can use."

"Please, no," he groaned as the others laughed.

Though the four of them joked like this for a while, Steve didn't feel bothered by it. Gray had something of a point. The team here felt like family to him after all, much as Bucky and the Howlies had in his day. There was no such camaraderie with the STRIKE team and probably never would be. Rumlow seemed too callous, too eager to rush into a fight. It wasn't the righteous fight he rushed to, but _all_ of them, as if he thought he was better than everyone else and they had to defer to him. That led to an odd feeling Steve had about the man, nothing concrete to act on, but enough that he couldn't really trust him.

On the other hand, he trusted the Avengers. He even trusted Gray and Wanda. Hell, he trusted _Sam Wilson_ more than Rumlow, and they weren't even good friends yet.

Steve knew to trust his gut. And right now, it was telling him that something bad was on its way.

***  
***


	3. The Talking Cure

Shannon Tran had an office suite on the medical floor, just below the common Avengers area. The medical team Tony had hired were discreet and on call, so most of the time the floor was fully stocked and empty. That gave the floor an eerie quality, a limnal space that made Shannon wonder if a jump scare horror movie was going to be enacted in it.

Damn her overactive imagination.

Loki knocked on her door as she finished writing her note for Tony. All of her notes here were guaranteed safe and separate from external databases, and somehow her old ones had appeared on JARVIS' server as well. It hadn't been worth questioning Tony about it. JARVIS assured her that it had been obtained under normal medical records requests to SHIELD. The copy they had was deleted, but JARVIS didn't disclose that part right away. That had been Tony, when upset about one of his helicarrier redesigns getting nixed by Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce as too expensive to replicate on a larger scale. Tony had not only wiped his records in a fit of pique, he had deleted any and all designs they had on file. "Even something called Project Insight that had an encrypted copy of my engines!" he'd cried in frustration. "That lying politician _bastard._ No wonder he got so far in Washington!"

"Come in," Shannon called. Loki's notes in this facility were separate from SHIELD notes. Given that he was essentially forced into therapy and kept under watch, all progress notes were SHIELD property. Her process notes nominally were hers, though SHIELD could request them at any time. She had moved them all to New York at JARVIS' suggestion, even if she felt vaguely guilty about it, and didn't copy over these sessions to SHIELD servers. "There are unknown signatures accessing your progress notes" was all JARVIS had to say to convince her to do it. He knew all the signatures for SHIELD staff, and she didn't want to know _why_ he did. An unknown signature was potentially more dangerous.

She worked for SHIELD and had to protect their interests, but she was just as concerned for Loki and had to protect _his_ interests as well.

He still looked drawn and pale, easily upset by minor irritants in cases. Loki slumped in the chair rather than sitting up straight, eyes fixed on the desk. "Today," he said in a small voice.

At the close of their last session, Loki had requested and extra, private session. "It is her birthday next week, and... I am not well."

Of course she had agreed; his grief was still too sharp and relatively fresh. Everyone at SHIELD believed he was dangerous and evil, but she felt he was dangerous when he was lonely or hurt.

Loki heaved a heavy breath. "I'm tired. I'm tired of putting on the face of a conqueror, tired of pretending that I am stronger than all of SHIELD. I'm just... tired."

"Are you suicidal?"

That he paused to seriously consider the question was highly concerning. "I would not take my life," Loki said finally. "But neither do I cherish life."

"What _do_ you cherish?"

He shook his head. "Precious little."

Shannon nodded slowly. It was always hard to force someone to value life, to make them see it as worthwhile if they didn't already feel it. "Because of the disappointment you feel? The despair can be so overwhelming."

He closed his eyes. "Perhaps. Everything is undone at the root, is it not? Tainted. She lied from the start about who I was, what I was to be. She sought to have me question myself, discount my knowledge, ignore my instincts."

"You were right to question her."

"Was I really? She is master of the _spá,_ she knows all the _örlogs_ of the _Wyrd._ I have knowledge of runes and the _seiðr,_ a poor substitute."

"Is it really?" Shannon challenged. "That's more than _just illusions and trickery._ You have the foundations of other magic skills, and the _spá_ seems to be more terrible than it's worth."

Loki shook his head. "It is the strongest of the magicks..."

"Seems to me that the rules are too rigid, lead to too many consequences, and might not even have the effect you want."

"It can change—"

"Things that shouldn't be."

He opened his eyes and gave her a baleful glare. "There are no absolutes if you master the _spá."_

"Sounds to me like there are. She was going to kill Wanda in order to change your fate. A life for a life, it seems."

Loki blanched, though they've discussed the topic before. Perhaps because there was the juxtaposition of _a life for a life_ put into context—

"Whose life had she sacrificed to change my fate the first time?" He seemed horrified by the thought. "Was I always a scourge?"

"The lives she took are not ones _you_ atone for. You can only change what _you_ respond to. Your weregild doesn't include the deaths _she_ left in her wake."

"I did not question it," Loki murmured, shaking his head. "If I was a baby, perhaps it didn't require such a price. But what child would she sacrifice to keep me? What life would be equivalent to mine in her eyes?"

It was more of a rhetorical question, so Shannon was silent.

"Jotnar war criminals, perhaps. Asgardian criminals. Any of those not deemed worthy."

"Which sounds really random, from what you've told me."

He closed his eyes again, a pained expression on his face. "Here, I remain Friggasson. I am faced with her betrayal and lies daily. I am broken anew."

"Would you change it?"

"They would accept that pain for my weregild, were you aware? A year of such pains," he explained with a bitter smile, "and it will be a life in exchange."

"The death of a thousand paper cuts."

"I deserve no less."

"You deserve choices. To be whoever you choose to be."

"Within reason. I am constrained to this planet."

"It's not a bad planet," Shannon began in protest.

"To the rest of the galaxy, it's a primitive shithole."

"Harsh."

"Few amenities for other races. And humans behave like such children, such cattle."

"As do other races."

Loki heaved a sigh. "I suppose so."

"There's a lot going on in your mind today."

"I suppose so."

"But I notice a distinct lack of feeling."

Flinching, Loki turned away and shut his eyes. "It hurts. And I'm tired."

"Some days just suck," Shannon said quietly, "but you still have to suck it up and move on."

"I don't know what I can do to ensure that."

"So you won't even try. Because then you can never fail."

"There has been much failure in my life so far."

"What're you gonna do about it?" She gave him an unamused look when he turned and stared blankly at her. "You're going to let the thought of failure paralyze you?"

He heaved another sigh. "I wish to sleep and not wake up again. To never feel this. To be calm in myself and my purpose once more. To be complete."

"What steps are you willing to take in order to get there?"

Loki looked defeated. "Tell me."

"Nope. This is _your_ life, _your_ goal."

"I am lost. I am tired. So tired."

"Is it needing a purpose?"

"Perhaps. Working off weregild is hardly a good way to define the self." There was the faintest of smiles at the corner of his mouth. "I believe I learned _something_ after all."

Shannon smiled warmly at him. "There's a lot you've learned, and not all of it is magic. Understanding how you feel, however painful it is, is important, too."

"So you say," he mumbled.

"Well, you're less likely to destroy a city now, right?"

He gave her a baleful glance. "That wasn't funny."

She grinned at him anyway. "You sure?"

"Quite," he replied testily.

They remained in silence for a time, until Loki began to squirm. "I don't feel right. Not like myself, whoever that's going to be. I wanted..." He let out a sigh, then shook his head. "Recognition. A true home. Belonging. I thought I had it, until my life became a lie. And now it's upended again."

"Is it, really? Nothing about _you_ has changed. It's your understanding of _her_ that's different. That she'd go so far as to undermine your sense of self to do what _she_ thought was right, that she'd override your wishes..."

Loki held up a hand. "Please stop," he rasped.

Falling back into silence, Loki sniffled and let the tears fall down his cheeks. When he gathered himself a bit later, he opened his eyes and looked at her. "I was no better than a tool after all. Once she could use or disregard at will. Just as I was for Odin." He laughed bitterly. "They really are a pair, aren't they?"

"Leaving you the odd one out?" Shannon was silent as Loki nodded and swallowed painfully. "Disavowing them doesn't erase the pain you feel. It doesn't undo the past. It just prevents future instances of it happening."

He winced. "Yes. I suppose."

"No supposing about it. That shit won't ever happen again because you won't allow it."

She'd said as much before. Today it was just as hard to hear it, and Loki turned away.

"What do you gain by keeping this hurt?"

That was a new question, and one that startled him. "I don't know."

"Are you hoping for some kind of relationship?"

"Not like that."

There it was. The hidden hope that Frigga would apologize, realize what she did was wrong, beg forgiveness, try to be the mother that Loki needed. But it would never come, and the pain of it was soul shattering.

"Maybe," Shannon said softly, "it's time to think of what you want from them, what you _need_ and what you're likely to get. See if it's good enough."

"If it's not?" he rasped.

"That's entirely up to you. In this case, the future is entirely in your hands."

If anything, Loki's misery turned into utter fear.

Shannon would be around for that, too.

***

Steve waited outside of Shannon's office, making sure he was in plain sight so he didn't startle her as she left. "Hi," he said as a greeting, hoping that he didn't sound too pathetic or lame.

She smiled warmly at him. "Hi, Steve. Rough time?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Loki thought you'd be able to refer me to somebody. He thought you're too busy."

"When am I not?" Shannon replied good-naturedly. "Want to come in and talk?"

"Not like a patient," he clarified, looking a little anxious.

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Friends can enter my office, too. It's not just for therapy."

Sheepishly, he followed her into the office. "Sorry."

"What for?"

"If you were heading out for the day," he clarified.

"Oh, I was going to sit and chat with Wanda for a while. Today's an Avengers day, anyway."

Steve nodded absently. "I suppose the thing is, I don't know exactly where I belong, or what I should be doing."

"It's hard coming back from the dead," Shannon agreed with a nod. She plopped down in a chair that sat across from her usual one, and indicated that Steve should sit across from her in the other chair across from her desk.

"Um..." He sat down gracefully, giving her a strained look. "I didn't think of it that way."

"You didn't expect to come back, and you were very publicly declared dead. Then along comes SHIELD team that finds your body and realizes you're still alive." She shrugged. "They weren't exactly kind about it, I suppose."

"It was off."

Shannon nodded. "So. As a friend with understanding in the field, I can recommend what you need if I know a bit more. As in, is this an existential issue or something more recent that you're struggling with?"

He frowned. "I only wanted to help. To do my part. To prove I was just as good as anybody else. Everybody I knew from then is gone. Or as good as," he added, thinking of Peggy with dementia in her nursing home room. He rubbed his jaw tiredly, heaving a sigh. "Not that people here haven't been fine, but it's not the same. Everywhere I go, everything is new, and I don't know where I fit anymore."

She pondered that for a moment, and Steve appreciated that she didn't brush him off with a pat answer of some kind.

"Most people of your generation don't talk about problems," she began in a thoughtful tone. "It was ignored, covered up, whatever they could do. How do you feel about talking to someone about those feelings?"

"Obviously okay, or I wouldn't be asking."

Her laugh was gentle. "Touché. But I meant, do you feel comfortable talking about all of the past? It's a lot of grief to go through."

That startled him a bit. "Oh. That makes sense."

"I don't know of any people in DC offhand, but I can look into it if you like."

"Well, I have a friend in DC. Natasha said he works in the VA system running support groups."

Shannon lit up. "That sounds perfect, actually." Her smile was gentle. "Even if it's not your war, I'm sure some things are universal."

"Death is death, no matter how it's dealt."

"Exactly."

Steve paused. "Is it too much to impose on the group? Sam's a relatively new friend."

"If he told you about the group, I think it'll be okay."

"Natasha told me," Steve admitted.

"Then go early and ask if he'll mind."

Relieved, Steve nodded. "Okay, I can do that. Thanks."

"If you _do_ need to talk to me as a patient, it's okay," Shannon added gently. "Loki doesn't like to share, that's why he said I was too busy."

He laughed at her smile. "Well, I was talking to him a little upstairs before he came down here to talk to you. Some things seemed similar. The loss and not having much here, I mean." He licked his lips nervously. "And Sam... I don't know him well yet. At all, really. But he was a solider, too. So he's got to have his own hurts. His own losses."

"So you ask him if he can deal with yours," she said softly. "You can't assume it of him outside a treatment setting."

"I guess that's why I'm kinda..." His voice trailed off. "I need friends more than a therapist."

"Approach him as a friend, then. The group would be the treatment."

Biting his lip, Steve looked past her, seeing a more internal landscape. "I don't want to be a burden on him."

"If you're honest with your intentions, you won't be."

"I'm still adjusting to life in this century sometimes," he admitted.

"That's okay. So are the ones born in it."

Steve let out startled laughter, and Shannon joined in. "So I'm not that far out of touch."

"Nah. The world doesn't really make sense to the rest of us, either. We just tell ourselves it should, and try to impose it on what we experience."

He gave her a relieved smile. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome, Steve."

"Felt like a therapy session," he murmured, "and I didn't mean to do that to you."

"That was me in conversation with a friend," Shannon said firmly. "I would advise the same thing to anyone asking me what therapy's like or what they should look for. The most important thing is that you trust who you're working with."

Steve pondered that, then nodded. "I appreciate that. The talking cure wasn't really talked about much in my day."

"It's getting better, but the stigma's still there."

Tapping the table as he nodded, Steve got to his feet. "I have things to think about. Thanks."

Shannon smiled and got up as well. "Anytime."

He was glad she truly meant it.

***  
***


	4. Beneath The Surface

Tony sat Steve and Natasha down in an empty meeting room on the common floor after Wanda sent Gray, Loki and Shannon back to California. She was still in the tower, but in her own suite on one of the upper floors with access to high speed internet for one of her online classes. Her twin brother used the specially designed and built treadmills to burn off his frustration, but otherwise was still cast adrift.

"You two," Tony began gravely, "are sitting on some deeply, deeply disturbing shit."

Natasha didn't react, but Steve did. "What do you mean?"

"I took this into a cold room – no outside internet, not even J to help me out. I figure anything SHILED that gets Nat all riled up has to be dangerous."

"Is it?" Steve asked when Natasha remained silent.

 _"So much,"_ Tony said finally, jaw working stiffly. "You have no idea what SHIELD is up to, do you?"

Steve looked at him, takin gin the strained expression on his face and the tense set of his shoulders. "I've only done individual missions for them. What aren't you telling me?"

"There are encoded plans for massive helicarriers, and targeting software."

"Targeting what?" Steve asked in dread.

"Encoded by who?" Natasha asked, sitting very still.

"Dread Pirate Fury's the name on it, but the digital signature is off, like someone's setting him up." At Steve's incredulous expression, Tony leaned back. "Yes, I know what his digital signature is like from hacking his files. This isn't the same, and there's a viral kind of AI embedded in this, bent on analyzing whatever it can get into. I didn't look too close at the code yet. Targeting software, viral AI and a faked signature. Tell me that doesn't stink to high heaven to you?"

Looking over at Natasha with an accusing stare, Steve bit out "What did he send you to find?"

"He said the Lemurian Star was targeted for a reason, and it wasn't for the agents on board. He didn't know exactly what I'd find."

"You actually trust him?" Tony asked incredulously.

Natasha met his gaze with a stony expression. "I did."

Steve took one of her hands in his. "I'm sorry."

"What're you sorry for?" Tony asked, frowning.

"Spies don't trust easily," Steve murmured.

"Or at all," Natasha intoned.

Tony let out a long breath, expression contrite. "Oh."

"We need to find out what this AI does," Steve said, looking at Tony earnestly. "Nat got a copy, not the actual thing. So it's out there, whatever SHIELD's planning to do with it..."

"Nick will know," Natasha said, eyes sliding away from them to look at the wall.

"I'll talk to him," Steve told Natasha, squeezing her hand.

"I can take care of my own issues," she replied firmly, looking back at him.

"Yes, but you don't have to. And he'll be on guard talking to you. Everyone thinks I'm gullible and an idiot about the modern world, he'll probably let his guard down."

"Not exactly an idiot," Tony said, looking at him with growing respect. "More like idealistic and naïve. You know, the Anti-Fury."

Natasha remained silent, staring at the twined fingers in Steve's grasp. She looked up when Steve squeezed them again. "It's all right. You don't always like what you find when you pull on threads in this business."

Even Tony seemed sympathetic at this point. "You got us."

She shot him a wry smile. "Like I said. You don't always like what you find."

His eyes widened slightly, then he made a dismissive gesture at her. "You're such a troll."

Her smile widened to mirror his, seeming more genuine and less pained.

"You keep that drive, and we'll head back to DC," Steve told Tony. "Don't do anything stupid to crack that thing."

"Me? Stupid?"

"I mean it, Tony."

"Aw, Cap, I'm touched you care."

Tony relented when Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, shoulders slumped. Natasha had looked down and away again, lips pressed tight. "You really mean it," he murmured, looking between them.

"We're friends, Tony. Right? Not just work colleagues."

He let out a breath, then nodded. "Yeah. I guess I don't have too many of those, so I never recognized it."

"Working on that in therapy?" Natasha asked quietly.

"Among other things," he replied vaguely.

"It's helping?" Steve asked curiously.

Tony appeared to ponder that. "I think so," he said finally.

Steve nodded. "I'm glad."

"Gonna stay the night or head back right away?"

"The train from NYC to DC—"

"I can fly you there," Tony shrugged.

Natasha chuckled at Steve's gobsmacked expression. "I think he forgets all the toys that the rich can buy."

"If you don't mind," Steve began, nudging Natasha, "then yes, I'd like to stay the night. We don't get a chance to meet often if there isn't some world ending problem."

"Right. And now it seems to be your loneliness."

Steve sighed at the glib comment, but let it pass. "Thanks."

Tony's beaming smile made up for it.

***

Steve supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that Director Fury would justify Natasha's role on the Lemurian Star. He _was_ surprised by the invitation to see the actual helicarriers for Project Insight. "This isn't freedom, this is fear," he told the man, a spark of righteousness in his chest. It was familiar, too much like the past he hadn't erased. This was an affront on Peggy's legacy, everything she fought for forgotten in the seventy years he'd been on ice.

Disappointed, he refused to discuss the flash drive that Natasha had been sent for. She was essentially running solo on that one, unwilling to let Steve take the blame for it. Tony would crack it, she would run interference.

Running helped clear his head, and Steve wound up at the VA looking for Sam. He slipped into the back of the support group while Sam's head was turned, and listened to a few stories. He heard Sam talking at the podium about how it was his job to help them learn how to deal with the load they carried, and Steve nearly wanted to weep at how necessary the words were. He needed to hear them, needed to be known in a different way. He still carried the war with him, didn't know how to put it down. Maybe he only transferred the burden to the Avengers or STRIKE team, but it was still there, waiting to remind him of how far he had to fall.

Steve remained seated when others left, and Sam gave him a wry smile. "I thought that was you. I didn't want to say anything."

"I wasn't sure if I'd come."

"And?"

"I'm glad I did."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "It's a hard transition, wartime to civilian," he commented.

Biting his lip, Steve stood. "I didn't really make that transition. I'm not sure I can."

"Well, it's tough if you're literally the symbol of America."

Steve gave a bitter bark of laughter. "Yeah, well, it wasn't my intention back then."

"Maybe not, but historians gave it to you."

He fell silent for a moment. "If we're friends, is it weird if I come to these? Or talk about things?"

"You eat yet?" Sam asked instead of answering.

"No."

"Let's grab a burger and talk."

It was a little hole in the wall place, more of a diner than a well known burger joint. Few people were there, which Steve appreciated. Sam knew the owner, that much was evident, and didn't approach the subject Steve had raised until they had both eaten.

"I get the impression there's a lot of shit that went down that historians got wrong. That happens a lot, doesn't surprise me. I'm flattered we're friends, Steve." Sam took a swig of his soda and sat back in a relaxed position, arm across the back of his chair. "Did you feel comfortable in the group when you were there today?"

"I did," Steve replied honestly.

"Sometimes people don't want friends knowing all about them or their trauma. They'd rather pu ton a face and smile through it all."

Steve thought of Natasha and nodded. "I can see it going either way, I guess. "But there's things I don't talk about that I'm sure are messing with me. Some people I know are in therapy, and they swear it helps them. I guess..." He rubbed his face tiredly. "I'm trying to get by in this time. I'm trying to deal with a future I don't know, with nobody I grew up with. I'm alone, and it's awful, and I don't want to be."

"Steve," Sam said quietly, leaning forward, "the group might not be enough."

"It's a start. It's a connection point."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "If you're okay with me leading it, then I'm okay with you attending."

"There's this feeling," Steve admitted. "I can't explain it in words. But I trust you with this stuff. I trust your intentions. And my instincts hadn't steered me wrong so far."

Laughing a little, Sam leaned back in his chair again. "There's always a first time, right?"

Startled, Steve laughed as well. "Then I'd love to discover that together."

***

The pediatric nurse next door was cute and flirty, but it felt odd somehow. Steve supposed he should try to interact, but he felt off, not as interested as he really should have been. He was relieved when the nurse wasn't free, but he wouldn't report that part to Natasha. She'd be proud of his effort at making friends or dating, at least.

Music playing and a silent Director Fury in his apartment was damn odd. He froze in place, and watched as Fury lifted a page he had previously written on.

_Apartment bugged. Project may be compromised._

Ah. The effulgent praise made a little more sense now, though Steve burned with the knowledge that Fury was continuing to play him, even now.

They talked about the music, the records that Natasha helped him hunt down in vintage shops. Fury promised to lend him a few, if he could find his grandfather's old collectibles. "I think you'd appreciate them more than I would," Fury commented.

Steve got himself a glass of water, then returned to the living room. He caught a glimpse of metal beyond his window, something that shouldn't have been in the skyline.

As he turned, the bullets flew through the window, just past him, to the chair that Fury was sitting in.

Steve grabbed his shield and clambered through the window to run after the gunman on the nearby rooftop. He intended to knock out the gunman with a throw.

Only, the gunman caught the shield with a metal hand, light glinting off the rest of his metal arm. He had straggly black hair, a face mask that covered his mouth and nose, black greasepaint around his eyes. The expression in his eyes seemed utterly blank as he threw the shield right back at Steve. As Steve caught it, the gunman dropped over the edge of the next building to the ground, out of sight.

It was tempting to chase after him, but Steve knew Fury had been hit.

Everything afterward was a blur. Ambulances, Natasha and Sam were called. The cute pediatric nurse was actually a SHIELD agent, undercover and watching over him. He was numb, and everyone seemed to want to know why Fury was in his apartment. The prewritten message had been destroyed during their talk about music and records. There was nothing to pinpoint why it had been so imperative for Fury to sit and wait for him _now._

Fury died on the table right in front of him. Natasha was in tears and recounting spy ghost stories. Sam didn't know what to say and stoically stood beside the two of them, offering silent support as the machine flatlined.

Later, Pierce didn't believe him. "He talked about music," Steve repeated, frustration in his tone. "I think he wanted to make sure I'm acclimating."

"Are you?" Pierce asked, sounding sincere. Steve had the sense it was false, but he couldn't pinpoint anything specific that was setting off his bullshit meter.

"I don't know," Steve replied honestly, shrugging. "I came to DC to work with him."

Pierce frowned and stood up from his seat with a concerned expression. "You'll stay, of course. We're doing good work here. We're shaping the future."

Steve thought of the helicarriers, looming large. "I'm not so sure I'm part of it," he said quietly. "I'm a relic. I really shouldn't be here."

"But you are, and you're Captain America."

He shook his head and backed up a step "I watched a man die in front of me and I don't even know why he was killed."

"So help us find who did it."

"With all due respect," Steve began firmly, "Director Fury was a spy. I'm a soldier, and obviously a bad one. I don't know why he would've been killed, and I don't want his secrets."

"What will you do now?"

All warmth was gone, though Pierce's expression didn't change. Steve felt a chill down his spine, though he didn't show it. This man was dangerous, and not just for his political clout.

"I don't know," Steve sighed. He looked at Pierce with the old puppy dog eyes that used to fool everyone but Bucky back in the day. "I need to reevaluate, you know? Fury was one of the few constants I had after I woke up, and now he's gone."

Pierce's stance relaxed, and he nodded. "Of course. Please keep me in the loop."

"Of course," Steve lied, expression earnest.

People always forgot that he could be an accomplished liar if he put his mind to it. They always thought he was all about justice, apple pie and some such. They forgot he had been willing to lie to join the war, that he volunteered to do dangerous things. He wasn't stupid, though he could do stupid things, and unfamiliarity didn't mean lack of understanding.

Steve was more aware of his surroundings than people thought, and went to the VA. His shadow would be aware of the group anyway, and this would play into the story he told Pierce. Everyone thought of him as gullible, after all. So if he was grieving his past, maybe they would leave him alone. Natasha would be so proud of him once he got a chance to explain.

Sam slid into the seat next to him when he didn't leave immediately after the group ended. "Nat said you had a shadow." He slipped Steve a burner phone. "Lose it, then meet up at my place. We all gotta talk."

With a sigh, Steve nodded. The burner seemed to weigh heavily in his pocket. "I'm sorry. I really just wanted a friend. And a way to process all this."

"Some people just don't take to retirement well."

He looked over at Sam with a laugh. "And I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

"At least you're pretty damn spry for a hundred year old man."

Now Steve's laughter was more genuine. "That's for sure. I can lap you ten times."

"Show off," Sam huffed with a smile.

Impulsively, Steve grasped Sam's hand. "I don't really know what's going on. And I'm sorry if I'm roping you into it against your will."

Sam used his free hand to pat Steve's fondly. "Captain America needs my help. I can't think of any better reason to get back in."

Steve let his shoulders slump. "Do we ever get to stop fighting?"

"Not until there's no more work to be done."

"How do we even hunt down a ghost story?"

"Like every other story says. Figure out what it wants."

"So... Figuring out what Fury wanted might be the answer."

"Nat took over that part. She'll report in."

"I get the feeling I won't like her answer."

"Maybe not, but we still gotta hear it."

***

Tony was quietly furious when Steve texted him about his conversations with Fury. "Son of a bitch. I thought I deleted the Project Insight plans in time."

He got up from his easy chair. Pepper had been on him to relax and not spend all his time in the cold room, but it was difficult to do that now. Reading astrophysics articles wasn't relaxing enough when he had a rogue AI on his hands.

"J... You think you could section off a piece of server so we can see what that drive is made of?"

"I can contain it, Sir, but are you sure that's wise?"

"Of course it's not," Tony scoffed. "But it's an AI meant to interact with data. It won't do anything unless I give it some."

JARVIS likely would have sighed if he could. Maybe Tony should give him some of that capacity. There was subtle sass already, why not other mannerisms?

"I have cordoned off workstation one and severed internet capabilities. There is a copy of the Stark Foundation data for the AI to process. I should be undetected and can observe and shut down further access if necessary."

Despite the obvious disapproval that Tony could hear, he grinned. Once at the workstation, Tony plugged in the flash drive and let the AI upload. "Awesome. Let 'er rip and see what that monster can do."

And monster it was. The AI gobbled up the data, making calculations and spitting it out into a separate file that it was creating. The encryption was rudimentary, and JARVIS could easily read through it to what its contents were.

Profiles. It was creating profiles on every employee at the Stark Foundation based on personnel data entry, archived e-mails from the server, affiliations from the e-mails and communication patterns. The AI was prevented from seeking out social media platforms, but it was attempting to do so in order to fully flesh out the profiles. There were notations of "suitability" and "marked for elimination" across each profile at the conclusion of its data processing.

Tony Stark's file was marked for elimination.

JARVIS abruptly killed the power to the workstation. "I suggest that you destroy this hard drive, Sir," he said. "Simply formatting it is kinder than a program of this kind deserves."

Tony was hardly unruffled, and had watched the data spool on the screen with growing dread. Hearing JARVIS say this only magnified the feeling. "Yeah. I gotcha, J."

Smashing the drive with a hammer was immensely satisfying.

Now it was his job to figure out who created the AI so he could do the same to the coder.

***  
***


	5. Realizations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020 has been utterly exhausting in so many ways, and recent events have added to that. I hope this chapter can be a distraction to help others cope.
> 
> Stay safe, everyone.

The world of espionage wasn't always a dangerous one, but Natasha's target certainly was. She recognized the sharpshooter that Steve had seen, and the only reason he was still alive was that he wasn't the target. She tried hunting down this particular ghost story several times, actually, and had lived to walk away _because she wasn't the target._ This ghost was known as the Winter Soldier because it took a certain type of asset to keep going when the job was nearly impossible to complete. He got the job done, no matter what it took. That could mean risk to his personal wellbeing, it could be disastrous explosions that had incredible collateral damage. The rumors said that it all depended on his mission parameters and how much he was hired to do; Natasha had _never_ been able to find mention of an organization hiring him or paying for a job.

Every case associated with the Winter Soldier had political connotations, though the ultimate connection between them was still elusive. Natasha also had a difficult time digging through the whispers and dark net chatter with the little free time she had. There was always something else to do, always another angle to play.

Fury's death and burial were very public, and chatter was everywhere she went digging. Of course there were some messages that he deserved to be killed, and some that were gleeful at the thought there would be less scrutiny. Maria Hill would snort and roll her eyes at that; Natasha would have to find the message board for her later.

 _I'm glad plans have been accelerated,_ one message declared. _With popular support for the Avengers right now, they and all of their ilk need to be eliminated._

Even more troubling was the reply. _We cannot be stopped, comrade. Cut off one head, two grow in its place._

A chill rolled down Natasha's spine, though she didn't outwardly respond. Instead, she started tracking the IP addresses and digging past the protocols on the message board keeping each member cloaked. Fuck that. The words were setting off her internal radar, and for things like this it was never wrong.

Clint and Steve might make fun of her for going through SHIELD archives for fun, but she knew exactly what she was dealing with and what was in them. She could get past the redacted portions of files, and the data collected through Operation Paperclip was her bedtime reading when she had first joined SHIELD. Hunched in front of her computer, aware that this was quite possibly a very bad decision, Natasha dialed Shannon Tran. The therapist was in between patients, which Natasha had known. It was more that she wanted to have an optimistic person as a sounding board, and Shannon was possibly the most optimistic woman that Natasha knew. Everyone else, from Melinda May to Maria Hill to even Pepper Potts tended to have a pessimistic streak a mile wide.

"Dr. Tran."

"Shannon. Off book question, you don't have to answer if you feel weird about it," Natasha began without preamble. She knew Shannon would recognize her voice. "Data collections are suspect, and there may be hidden organizations within a larger one that is charged to do good. I don't think the hidden one has benevolent purposes."

"O-o-o-okay," Shannon drawled, sounding uncertain. "Sounds like there's a lot to unpack there."

"True."

"And that it's going to be a bitch and a half to explain."

"Also true."

"And that leaving me with as little detail as possible is protecting me from whatever bullshit you have following you."

Natasha had to smile. "You know me so well, Shannon."

She could almost imagine Shannon sighing and rubbing her temples. "Obviously I can't give you any accurate advice. But the hidden organization needs to be taken out. You can't leave it there just because the obvious one is supposed to do good. The hidden organization could subvert its purpose and twist results for who knows what reasons."

"I kinda had that feeling myself. Just wanted to be sure it was accurate."

Shannon made a pained noise. "Are you in trouble, Natasha?"

"I usually am, the kind of work that I do," Natasha said sardonically, shaking her head a little. "I think I can get myself out of trouble. I usually can."

"I don't know if I can help you with anything, but I'll try if I can."

Natasha grinned. "I know. It's why I called. I know you'll give me an honest answer, and your opinion is what a good person would do."

"Whatever you do, stay safe."

"As safe as I can be," Natasha promised, then hung up. Maybe she could even keep that promise.

***

Steve couldn't say for certain if he was followed or not, but he took the train to New York in regular clothes, headphones in his ears and a sketchbook in his lap. He'd submitted all the proper paperwork to be on leave from the STRIKE team, no date set for return yet. Something rubbed him wrong about what was happening in SHIELD. Visiting Peggy hadn't cleared his head; she was having more and more bad days, where she didn't know what year it was and kept thinking that he and Bucky were leading the Howlies in Europe. This was a cowardly thing to do, but Steve wanted to slam his hand through the wall after those visits, and his superpowered fist would knock it down easily. It was better to simply escape for a bit into the art museums, sketch famous paintings until his shadow got bored, then circle back to the Tower.

Who said he hadn't absorbed Natasha's teachings?

By the time he felt comfortable enough to leave MOMA, it was nearly lunchtime. That was a natural time to stop by the Tower for lunch. Loki and Agent Gray were in the kitchen when Steve arrived on the Avengers common floor. Gray was texting someone with a sandwich in his free hand, ignoring Loki's sour expression.

"Mind if I join you?" Steve asked. Maybe it would be helpful to get their opinion about what was going on with Fury's death and the helicarriers he hadn't felt as sanguine about.

Loki looked up, and Steve could see banked anger in his eyes. "This is your home more than mine," he said, voice stiff.

Gray didn't seem perturbed by that at all. He must have gotten used to Loki's temper in the year or two they've worked together. "Have a sit. We've already eaten, but everyone gets free rein with the fridge. Tony's rules."

Neither seemed overly concerned with the massive amount of food on his plate. He shoved a bit in front of Loki. "You must be hungry, the way you're staring at this."

"That is enough food for Thor and his ilk."

"The serum means I have a fast metabolism. But here, you look hungry."

"I look. Hungry," Loki repeated stiffly, an almost dubious cast to his features with the last word. Better than angry, though.

Steve shrugged. "I guess I take after my Ma a bit after all." He shot Loki a sad smile. "She always used to say that food made me antsy. Food is love, after a fashion."

"Isn't that a Jewish grandma stereotype?" Gray asked, brows knit.

Shrugging again, Steve finished chewing his mouthful of food before speaking. "Dunno. My Ma was Irish Catholic. They sure can lay on the guilt."

Loki's expression was nearly thunderous. "You are quite the upstanding citizen. There is no reason for you to feel guilt."

"Sure there was. Not doing my chores, running around back alleys getting into fights—"

"You. Fights." Loki clearly didn't believe him, and Steve laughed. "That was not humorous."

"What'd you think Captain America stood for?"

"What did they say? Truth? Justice?"

"Yeah. By fighting." Steve took another healthy bite and washed it down with milk. "Remember the Chitauri? Any bad guy's not gonna stop if you ask please. Sometimes it takes a fist to the face. Even back in the 40's, when I was doing the road shows, it involved me giving Hitler a sock to the jaw. Did it over two hundred times."

Loki blinked slowly, mulling that over while Gray chuckled. "Shit, sometimes I forget you were alive back then," Gray was saying. "I'm sure you're tired of all the 'What was it like back then?' kind of questions."

"It was wartime," Steve said, eyes shifting away and shoulders tightening a bit. "It sucked."

"Is it different now?" Loki asked, voice quiet. "It still sucks."

That sounded so odd coming out of his mouth, but Steve didn't say anything about his word choice. He finished off another mouthful and leaned back in his chair. "I think it sucks in a different way. There are vaccines now, that's good. Music is everywhere, it's easy to find things to learn if you want to. That's nice. Some of the social things are different, easier to find and connect with people like you."

"There are none like me," Loki said, though it sounded automatic and not heartfelt. His gaze seemed inward more than anything else at that moment, as if the words reminded him of something, though he didn't change expression.

Steve pondered that. "You're here, though. With us in the Tower, I mean," he added when Loki turned and stared at him with wide eyes. "You're trying to do something different with the life you were given."

"That was forced upon me, not chosen as it was for you."

"Well, yeah. But you're not bucking it. You're actually trying, right? I don't think they'd make you an agent to help people if you were going to screw it up or hurt people."

Now Loki winced, and Steve looked at him curiously. "What? Did I miss something?" he asked.

"I am in... _discussions_ with the new Director."

"New Director? Who's that?" Steve asked. "I pretty much walked away and never formally said anything to SHIELD. I assumed Pierce would say something."

"Deputy Director Maria Hill was promoted with the death of Nicholas Fury," Loki said. Gray was studiously looking everywhere else. "She wanted to know where my loyalties truly lie, and was not subtle about it."

"Uh... Am I missing something?"

"She had a gun on the table," Gray said when Loki remained silent. "With hollow points, she said." He swallowed uncomfortably at Steve's open mouthed stare. "Loki didn't know what that meant, so she told him. And asked if she needed to demonstrate how effective they were by shooting me in the head."

"Jesus," Steve breathed.

"I cast a shield over him immediately," Loki said tightly. "We are partners. She will not do him grievous harm without my death."

"What the fuck even is SHIELD anymore?" Steve asked, shaking his head. "Peggy built it from the ground up, and this fuckery wasn't ever part of her vision."

"We're here while Dr. Tran politely screams at Director Hill," Gray offered. He lifted his hands up as Steve gawked at him. "Her words to describe it."

"Jesus," Steve said again, rubbing his jaw.

"I do think your lord and savior is all out of fucks to give," Loki said, sarcasm in his tone.

Steve couldn't help but laugh, a despairing kind of sound, and he shook his head. "What the fuck happened to the world while I was asleep in the ice?"

"Sounds like it probably went to hell in a handbasket," Gray offered.

They all turned at the sound of heels clicking on the floor. Shannon Tran could have dressed more casually, but had insisted on dressing up as if the Tower was an actual clinic. Her facial expression was drawn, eyes snapping.

"Didn't go well?" Gray asked as Loki held his breath.

"I was this close to tendering my resignation," Shannon snapped. She went to the fridge and rummaged around until she found one of the Sam Adams beer bottles and grabbed it. All three men gawked as she opened it and then practically chugged a third of it and then burped from the fizz. "Sorry. This is..." She grimaced. "Not optimal, but Tony always has something on hand, and I'd rather not break into his hard stuff."

Loki had his hands folded in his lap, but Steve could see the tense set of his shoulders and jaw. "Am I that expendable, then?"

"Hell no," Shannon spat. There was a high pitched ringing sound, and Shannon dug into the suit jacket pocket for her cell phone. She frowned at it, then thumbed for access. "Who the—"

"What?"

"Offices compromised," Shannon read. "This from a number I don't know."

"If I may," JARVIS announced overhead. "I can search for the number using Sir's protocols."

"He has protocols for this?" Shannon asked, blinking.

"If you allow me access to your phone, I will determine the origin of the text."

"You know what? Go ahead." Shannon sighed and took a swig of beer. "Today is just all kinds of weird, I want one thing that we can trust."

Steve watched as she sat down heavily on a chair between Loki and Gray. "So what do we do? If SHIELD is compromised?"

"You think that was Director Hill?" Shannon asked, startled.

"What if that gun bullshit was for someone else's benefit?" Gray breathed, catching on.

Shannon looked at their faces. "What the hell is going on?"

Thinking back over what he knew of Shannon, Gray and even this new version of Loki, Steve decided to be honest. "Fury was in my apartment when he was shot. He had a message saying my apartment was bugged and the project he was working on could be compromised."

"What project?"

"Project Insight," Steve explained. He pushed his plate away, losing his appetite. "It's a way to preemptively locate potential threats."

"Sir had determined that the AI you and Miss Romanoff had retrieved from the Lemurian Star was to assess people for elimination based on social media and public profiles," JARVIS announced. "And yes, Dr. Tran, that was Director Hill through a burner phone. I was able to trace it back to her by triangulation data."

She shivered and Loki reached out to touch her arm. When she looked at him with a bleak expression, he grimly said "Have they compromised your principles yet?"

"We can't let that happen," Gray said, shaking his head. "This isn't the organization Dan and I joined. This isn't what it's supposed to be, taking out people who _might_ be a threat."

"Aren't we weapons for their use?" Loki asked, looking at him. "Wasn't that what Director Hill seemed to imply?"

"If it's a compromised office, though," Steve mused quietly, "who's the one she wanted to put on a show for?"

Shannon took another swig of beer. "We need to tell the people we know and trust about this," she said before the others could try to come up with ideas. Her shoulders were hunched, almost approaching her ears as if she was trying to make herself a smaller target. "Honest people could be caught in the crossfire of an AI like that."

"I rather believe that's the point," JARVIS said gravely. "Sir was on the elimination list, as well as several reputable employees of Stark Industries."

Loki grasped Shannon's hands when they started to shake and the bottle in her hands rattled on the table. "How many people could those things target?" Shannon asked, looking at Steve in dawning horror.

"Too many, probably. I don't know much detail about it."

"Who would?" Gray asked.

Shannon let go of the bottle and looked at the others with wide eyes. "Natasha."

"What? I know she was off investigating something—"

She cut off Steve. "She asked me about an organization inside another one that was charged to do good. The hidden one was doing dangerous things. She asked me what to do."

"What did you say?"

"To take it out," Shannon replied, looking at the three of them helplessly.

Steve was nodding at that, however. "That's right. There's no way to tell if the good intentions have been corrupted so badly that it can't be recovered from or not. We'd have to burn it out and start over." He stood abruptly. "I have one or two people to talk to about this. Don't do anything," he warned them. "You guys don't want a target painted on your back."

"And you can afford to have one?" Shannon retorted as Loki frowned at him.

"What're they gonna do? Kill Captain America?" Steve scoffed.

"Please don't joke about that," Shannon pleaded.

"The way I figure it, I should've been dead dozens of times over by now. But there's always something to do, always another fight."

Loki tilted his head to the side, looking at Steve in curiosity. "Is this truly your fight?"

"Peggy and Howard founded SHIELD. They were my friends before I went into the ice, and I did that to save the world from what Hydra had planned. I can't let their legacy go on to destroy everything they fought to protect."

"But what about the ones that actually wanted to work for SHIELD?" Loki prodded, indicating Gray and Shannon. "What about the idealistic ones?"

"What about them?"

"Shouldn't you find out who the dangerous ones are first?"

"I will," Steve said, a stubborn cast to his jaw. He didn't flinch from Loki's incredulous look or the pained ones on Shannon's and Gray's faces. "I will, and I don't want any of you getting hurt. But yes, Shannon's right. If there are people that broke SHIELD and corrupted it, then it's got to go, one and all."

"Careful, Steve," Shannon murmured. "You want to make sure the good ones survive a scorched earth method like that."

He nodded, and left the Tower.

***  
***


	6. All That's Come And Gone Away

Steve returned to DC feeling sick at heart. Peggy was having a bad day when he stopped by the nursing home, crying for the brother that Steve had never been able to meet. He held her hands and stayed with her until she fell asleep, managing not to cry himself. Once her breathing was even and he put her hand back at her side, he sat back heavily in the chair beside her. Tears came easily then, hot on his cheeks, and he startled badly when the burner phone in his pocket buzzed with an incoming message.

_Tail back in place. Stay at NH, I'll come to you. :)_

From the emoticon, Steve knew it was Natasha.

He stayed in his seat, wiping at his face and trying to clear his thoughts. That was harder than he thought it would be. Sam might be in danger, and it would be his fault. One of his few friends, and certainly his first one outside of SHIELD or the Avengers. He knew good people that worked in SHIELD, and the Avengers were likely also on the hit list. How could he save them? Because he was only one man, and knew he would never be allowed into the area where the final modifications were being put into the Project Insight helicarriers.

He was only too mortal, less than the legend he had grown into being since his death.

Natasha slid into the room wearing a striped hoodie, skinny jeans and lace up sneakers, looking for all the world like a disaffected hipster. "Hey."

Nodding at her, he took up Peggy's hand and gave it a squeeze as a goodbye.

"No, wait, don't get up," Natasha said quickly, shuffling chairs around in the room. She stayed close to the door, angling her chair so that she could look out of it quickly. Steve saw the flash of her Widow's Bites when her reaching movements pulled the hoodie sleeves back. "We're waiting on one more," she told him when he stared at her.

"Who?"

"You know him already."

It was Sam, who strolled into Peggy's room as if he didn't have a care in the world. Natasha looked at him approvingly, then shut the door. She pulled out three different phones, only one of which she used to generate white noise. "Just in case," she murmured.

"You think her room is compromised?" Steve asked, shoulders slumping. What secrets could a demented woman reveal?

Natasha's gaze was sad when she looked at him, making him sigh and scrub his face tiredly. "This sucks. Who are we even up against?"

"Chatter doesn't always name organizations," she began in a chiding tone of voice. "But they do use the phrase 'Cut off one head, two more grow in its place'?"

Steve looked at her in shock, color draining from his face. "Hydra. But they should be gone. We wiped them out in the war!"

Sam and Natasha exchanged weary glances. "Operation Paperclip was a known program to import Nazi scientists to add to the brain trust in the United States." Natasha continued despite the angry tic of muscle in Steve's jaw as he clenched his teeth. "There's an incomplete record of who came over, but some of the Nazi scientists were part of Hydra."

"Zola," Steve said, bitterness and anger in his voice at once.

"His name was on the list, then eventually struck out. But his name showed up a few times, so I think they were trying to redact it for some reason."

"Because he's Hydra."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Sam murmured into the awkward silence.

"I didn't fucking die for this," Steve growled.

"Yeah, well, you also didn't die," Sam pointed out.

He threw up his hands in frustration. "I just don't know what to do about this."

"We have to stop the helicarriers, you know that," Natasha murmured.

"It's not like I have access. I practically resigned from SHIELD," Steve said, heaving a sigh. "For all the good it'll do me in this."

"Better if we do it off book," Natasha said quietly. "To take out whoever is corrupting her vision," she added, nodding at Peggy's sleeping form.

"How's that supposed to work if they'll kill us once they realize we're going to do something?" Steve asked, feeling hopeless. This wasn't his kind of war. He was the kind of guy that needed a target to hit, then he would pound it into submission. That was so much more clear cut than the cloak and dagger shadows chasing.

Sam unzipped his jacket and pulled out the thick folder that he had been keeping hidden. "I have an idea, but it's kinda not in my possession anymore."

Steve looked over the EXO-7 flight suit designs within the folder. "Sam..."

"I told you," he said firmly. "Captain America needs my help."

"I can't ask you—"

"I'm volunteering, man."

"But your job at the VA..."

A small shrug stopped Steve from protesting further. "I love it. But I also know that this is important. If we don't have a safe country, if the agencies we have in play can't do the job that we need them to do, then my patients aren't safe."

"So you have your suit—"

"Nope," Sam interrupted. "But I know where it is. Locked behind twelve foot steel walls, and a series of alarms and guards."

Steve looked to Natasha who shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal at all. "All right, then. We get your suit so you have wings again. We also have figure out what our step is after that."

Natasha smiled, a slow and creeping curve of her lips that gave chills to lesser men. "That's easy. We need to draw the hidden Hydra vipers out of hiding."

***

Shannon sat quietly in her California office during her lunch hour. She told Henry about the startling revelation, of course. Even worse, she had received cryptic texts from Natasha's burner phone about Hydra on the rise. Which meant that they were the bad apples spoiling SHIELD's legacy, and she didn't know what to do about that. Biting her lip uncertainly, she drummed her fingers on her desk as she looked at her computer screen. There was an e-mail open and the cursor blinked at her so that she could compose a message, but she wasn't as certain about resigning. Henry would back her up no matter what she chose to do, but it was going to be impossible for her to tell who was one of the problematic members of SHIELD.

Heh. Even thinking that was sanitizing it. Apparently there was Hydra deep within SHIELD, and the thought of it was frightening. She knew her history. She knew what they were capable of, what their agenda was. Everyone knew, but apparently some of her colleagues believed in the old propaganda and wanted to see Hydra in a position of power. She just didn't know who.

Pushing back from her desk, she left and headed toward the office areas where the field agents worked. Some of those sections were like a maze, and she smiled pleasantly at people who passed her by. Maybe there weren't traitors within the group here. Maybe she was working with genuinely good people at this location.

But she couldn't be sure, and the uncertainty burned.

Knocking on the door to Agent Gray's and Loki's shared office, she went inside without waiting for either of them to speak. Both were working on files, which would have been an incongruous sight a year ago. But no, both men were dressed in similar dark suits and dress shoes, pens in hand as they filled out forms in triplicate. Loki even continued to sign his name Loki Friggasson on every document, the same grand flourish and curlicue at the end as he had done with the very first form they had filled out together.

Without saying anything, she jerked her head to the side to indicate that she wanted them to leave the building. At least, she hoped they understood.

Loki stood without a word and nodded. He had always thought the office would be monitored in some way, whether audio only or audio and visual neither knew. Natasha had never said, possibly because she wasn't as closely involved any longer.

Gray followed them outside into the bright sun. It felt so out of place to have a bright and sunny spring day when there was such rot inside the system. "Natasha texted me last night. The bad guys we were talking about with Steve are actually Hydra."

"Um... They were supposed to have been eliminated in WWII," Gray said.

"Yeah, but apparently they just went into hiding. I don't know if I should resign or not," Shannon said bluntly. "I can still do good if I'm working," she continued, not waiting for them to reply, "but I don't know who I'm doing good _for_ anymore."

Shannon watched Loki's lips part and gaze turn inward. "We both know that if you leave, I won't work for them any longer," he said quietly. "Then I'll be the loose cannon they fear, even if I don't plan to do harm."

She pressed her lips together and tried to hold back tears. "I wanted to do good in the world, you know? Maybe just a small piece of it, for those that couldn't even hope to have help. And I don't know if I'm doing that anymore."

Loki heaved a heavy sigh and Gray looked away uncomfortably. "You've always had your ideals," Loki told her incredibly gently. "I'm sorry they're gone now."

Running a hand through his hair, Gray finally looked up and back at Shannon. "Is there a way to find out who's who? So we're not throwing out everything? I mean, not everyone here is bad, you know? Why screw the guys who aren't Hydra?"

"I don't even know how to start," Shannon murmured.

"Your lover is in Human Resources," Loki said sharply, looking at Gray. At his slow nod, Loki nodded as well. "There must be ways to tell from there. Where finances are coming from, who might have odd requests."

"It's a place to start, I guess."

"Who else do we trust aren't Hydra?" Shannon asked.

"If we're supposed to trust Hill," Gray began, "I kinda don't."

"I do," Loki admitted. "She's forthright. She wasn't lying in that meeting. More dramatic than Director Fury was, but that was likely for whoever needed to see it."

"Wait, you know if she's lying or not?" Gray asked incredulously.

"It's not as precise as that. But a sensation that I listen to."

Shannon chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I'm scared," she admitted. "I'm not a fighter, I'm not important in the grand scheme of things. But if that AI is set to eliminate people, including the Avengers, then who else would be a target? Anyone genuine that doesn't toe the line that Hydra sets?"

"It will take time to determine if I can make a talisman that will confuse the targeting system that this project would use," Loki began. "Wanda would be able to help if she so chose, but that's still just the two of us. I wouldn't trust any other mage that SHIELD works with."

A chill rolled down Shannon's spine. "So what do we do?"

"Continue as normal for now, I guess?" Gray offered. "If we don't act like anything is up, then no one can target us."

Loki snorted inelegantly. "I might be a target no matter what."

"Dangerous interplanetary criminal," Gray pointed out.

In response, Loki said something in Allspeak that carried scathing tones and likely was the kind of threat that would get him locked up in a cage again.

Gray only grinned and took it in stride. "Love you, too, Loki," he said with a sickeningly sweet smile. Flustered, Loki huffed a breath. "You forget, I'm the baby of my family and my brothers all have nasty senses of humor. Plus, I dealt with a lot of shit for being gay. So I doubt you can say anything that will really rile me."

"It wasn't intentional," Loki said, posture stiff and dignified. "But that was an unpleasant thing you said to me."

Shannon couldn't help but smile, and reached out to rub Loki's arm affectionately. "See? You've learned so much."

Loki shot her a scathing look, which made her laugh out loud.

"Okay, I won't resign. You talk to Dan, see if there's some way to tease out of records who could be a Hydra agent."

"It could be easier if we had an AI of our own doing that," Gray mused. "I mean, it's a lot of data to crunch through."

Lighting up, Shannon pulled her phone out of her suit jacket pocket and scrolled through her contacts. "In that case, we know just the right person." At Loki's arch expression, she turned her phone around so he could see the screen.

Highlighted was Tony Stark.

***

Getting Sam's EXO-7 flight suit from Fort Meade was easier than expected. One military pararescue soldier, one supersoldier and one superspy were more than enough to get past the armed guards and security protocols in place; Sam had been embarrassed for the Air National Guard soldiers stationed there. The three incapacitated all the guards, moving swiftly and silently past the three gates until they reached the secure lockers where discontinued prototypes were kept. Natasha had only smirked and kept watch for additional guards in case her alarm bypasses were caught. She didn't think they would be, but it didn't hurt to keep her guard up.

After stashing the suit in the trunk, Sam drove them back into the DC metro area. "This will have to be something that goes higher up than just a few people way down in clerical," he told them. "There's no way Hydra could've hidden in plain sight for so long otherwise."

"They infiltrated so long ago," Steve said with a disappointed shake of his head.

"We're looking at a larger organization within the grand scheme of things. I wouldn't be surprised if it goes outside of SHIELD, too. There are scientists, clerical, financial, and transport staff in addition to field agents all over the world. I wouldn't be surprised if we're dealing with military, education and politics as well."

"Way to be positive," Sam snarked.

"Realistic. It's kept me alive this far."

Steve massaged his temples and sighed. "This nightmare started with the Lemurian Star. You were getting a copy of that AI, and I was supposed to rescue the hostages. I don't think Batroc was Hydra. He's a mercenary, and all he cares about are his reputation and fees."

"So he could've been hired to lay siege to make it look realistic," Sam said when Natasha remained silent. "Were there important people on board?"

"Lots of science staff and Agent Jasper Sitwell," Steve said. "I was surprised to see him there."

"Well, then, I think we should pay Agent Sitwell a visit," Natasha said. "And it should be the kind of visit where he has no choice but to talk with us."

Sam snorted. "Man, I'm glad we're friends. You can be one scary lady."

Natasha gave him a smile that was tinged with sadness. "Also why I'm still alive."

At that, he glanced her way and reached out to grasp her hand. He gave it a squeeze and grinned at her. "And the world is a much better place with you in it."

Her smile lost its sad edge. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

"Well good," Sam said, turning back to watch the road. "Because right now, that flattery has to get us close to Hydra agents."

Tracking down Agent Sitwell's movements was surprisingly easy, given how suspicious of him they were. After his senatorial meeting, Sam goaded him into meeting Natasha and Steve on a rooftop. He was gleeful about putting on his wings again, and the other two couldn't help but grin at him. "Let's face it," he said with no shame whatsoever, a wide grin on his face, "I'm your kind of crazy. Let's do this."

Sitwell was terrified of Natasha, not of Steve. His "aw shucks" reputation wasn't intimidating, but no one knew what Natasha was capable of in the course of a mission. She'd left bodies in her wake before joining SHIELD, and even after was deadly as ever. Kicking Sitwell off the roof was a calculated move, since Sam was there to grab Sitwell and bring him back to the rooftop for questioning. Sitwell was the kind of man to save his own skin, and it wasn't long before he was disclosing everything about the algorhythm that Armin Zola had created for Hydra. "It evaluates people's past to predict the future."

"What then?"

"Oh, God, Pierce is gonna kill me." He didn't notice when Steve stiffened beside him, too worried about his own future within Hydra.

"What then?!" Steve insisted.

"Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list... a few million at a time."

Natasha and Sam exchanged horrified glances. Sitwell had access, and he wouldn't likely override the system to delete the algorhythm before the helicarriers were launched under false pretenses. "You're not going to be able to get in there. You're as good as done," Sitwell was telling Steve, a combination of bravado and fear in his voice.

"We'll use him to bypass t he DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly."

Sitwell's eyes widened almost comically. "What?! Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea. I'm as good as dead," Sitwell moaned when they bundled him into the backseat of Sam's car next to Steve. "I'm a loose end, you can't just cart me around with you."

"You're a loose end, meaning you're safer with us than with them," Steve reasoned.

"No, you don't understand, I can't be seen with any of you. I can't be with any of you. If they figure out that I've told you anything, I'm as good as dead."

"You mentioned that," Sam said, getting back onto the highway.

"You're right in the open! I've already deviated from the plans enough."

"Think of this as your way to earn redemption," Natasha said, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. He only blanched in response.

Sitwell kept his eyes out of the window, growing more agitated by the minute. "The hell, man," Sam grumbled.

"We're all in so much danger right now, you don't even know."

"More than we were an hour ago?" Steve scoffed.

"You have no idea what we're capable of," Sitwell hissed. "And if they get the Asset into play, we're all dead within the day."

Natasha was the one that stiffened this time, eyes darting everywhere and on the alert. Even so, it was still a shock when a metal arm punched through the window to yank out Sitwell and toss him aside onto the highway like a ragdoll. Then out came the steering wheel right out of Sam's hands, tossed onto the highway. Natasha moved lightning fast when the thuds on the roof shifted. She pushed Sam out of the way and hauled Steve out of the backseat. Sam jammed his foot on the brakes, sending the person on the roof hurtling toward the road and causing more of a backup behind them on the highway.

All three had eyes on the road ahead, view clear despite the broken windshield. The figure stood up after stopping his movement with his metal hand. He got to his feet in an almost languid motion, dark hair flapping in the wind. He was entirely in black tactical gear, guns and knives strapped to his body and a black mask covering his lower face while a set of goggles covered his eyes from view. "He's the one that killed Fury!" Steve cried.

"That's the Winter Soldier," Natasha said quietly, unable to tear her eyes away from him.

And he was headed right for them.

***  
***


	7. Street Fighters

Even without the call from Shannon, Tony had already started on an AI of his own that could rout out hidden Hydra agents. He hadn't been there for the initial conversation, but JARVIS had replayed the conversation that Steve, Loki, Gray and Shannon had in the kitchen with their permission. Natasha had also texted him about the fact that it had to be Hydra agents after the meeting in Peggy's room.

He remembered Peggy as a vibrant and no nonsense kind of woman. She always had a kind word for him when he was a little boy, even when his father didn't and his mother was absent. Once he had asked her why he couldn't be her son, and her expression had been one of so much sadness that he regretted asking her. "He hadn't always been terrible," she had murmured. "So much loss broke his heart, and I don't think he's capable of repairing it."

"Not even for me?"

"Not even for you."

Tony could remember her tight hug, the scent of her perfume and the soft press of her blouse against his cheek. He'd forgotten about that moment for so long, and he froze in place. Peggy had deserved so much better than to be locked inside a mind that was decaying.

"Hey, J," Tony called out, voice hoarser than he thought it would be. "We're going to need to develop something to take out that other AI."

"While I believe you can do such a thing, Sir, it's going to be very difficult to eliminate entirely."

That was certainly true, and Tony pondered that for a moment. "What about an AI that will overwrite their AI?"

If JARVIS could chuckle, he probably would have. "That would be more insidious and more difficult for Hydra agents to detect."

Tony grinned and rubbed his hands together in anticipation like a 50's movie villain. He pointed up to the ceiling, still grinning. "Get my hacking playlist and crank it up. Daddy's got some work to do."

AC/DC started blasting, and Tony got to work.

***

Bad enough the Winter Soldier was stalking forward toward them, but there were also two cars behind them with several armed men in flak jackets getting out. Each carried submachine guns, and their black jackets weren't marked with any insignia. Though their weapons seemed to be the same caliber that SHEILD agents used, these were definitely not SHIELD agents.

"Move!" Steve shouted.

Natasha turned to Sam. "Let us draw fire, you hang back. They're probably not after you."

Sam goggled at the sight of Natasha retrieving two small pistols from the inside of her jacket with a solemn expression. "Are you serious?" he cried. "You're armed?!"

"Always," she said, then retrieved a knife from her boot and handed it over to him. "You can never be too careful in my line of work. Stay safe."

She darted from the car before he could reply, tucking into a roll and then coming up to her feet after dodging bullets from the armed men closing in on their location. She shot at them before taking off at a run past the stopped cars near Sam's, heading for the railing. A line from her gauntlet attached to the concrete railing, and she vaulted over the side. He could hear onlookers cursing in shock, and he would've done the same if he had the presence of mind to do so. Steve had ducked out of the car in the opposite direction with his shield in his hands, clearly intending to lead the Winter Soldier away from the civilians backed up behind Sam's car.

The black suited armed men weren't interested in Sam, heading straight past him with their submachine guns to chase after Steve and Natasha. She obviously had wanted Sam to hang back and was intent on sacrificing herself for him.

Nice thought, but he didn't need that.

Holding Natasha's knife in hand, Sam stalked forward after getting out of his car. He slashed at the strap of one of the submachine guns from the man closest to him, and started beating on the head of the stunned man until he fell to the ground unconscious. From there, Sam started picking off whatever other armored men that he could from his position.

Who said you couldn't bring a knife to a gun fight?

He could see Natasha look over her shoulder as she ran away from them, a smirk at the corner of her lips. Of course she would be impressed by that. She was a madwoman.

Steve in the meantime was throwing punches at the Winter Soldier as if he wasn't every assassin's personal nightmare. When he was close enough to the edge of the overpass, Natasha stopped and took careful aim with her pistols. They caught the Solider in the head, but all that did was break his goggles and his attention from Steve. He barked something at the remaining black uniformed thugs in Russian that Sam didn't understand.

The upshot of it was, they broke off from shooting at Natasha. Instead, now they were turning their attention to Sam and Steve.

Launching himself over the side of the rail, the Winter Soldier landed heavily on top of a car, shattering its windshield as the hood dented down under his weight. He stalked forward to go after Natasha, a murderous strut that sent civilians scurrying away from him. Natasha couldn't miss that, and her smirk was gone. She angled herself away from the highway and the onramp, shouting for civilians to get away from the area.

As much as he worried about her now, Sam couldn't keep his attention focused on her. There were still around ten men on the overpass with him and Steve, and too many civilians to shoot wide. Being bad guys, the armored men didn't care about that and shot indiscriminately in Sam and Steve's direction.

"He went after Nat," Steve called out to Sam after ducking behind an abandoned car.

The bullets that hit it left deep punctured holes. That was a terrible sign. "I got these guys!" Sam called out. "Go help her out!"

"Are you crazy?!" Steve cried incredulously. Sam wanted to roll his eyes, but he needed his vision clear as he shot at the armored men through gaps in their approach. Nine left.

"Man, I got this! Military too, remember?" Sam lined up his shot, got one through an eye socket and the bullet went right through him to wing another. He didn't count him out, so that left eight to gun down. It should've bothered him that he was shooting to kill, but so were they. If it came down to it, he could shoot them now in self defense and then pray over his soul later.

Steve lifted his head to say something else, but the men started shooting again. Sam used that moment to reposition his cover closer to them. He had no idea why Steve thought he could do something with his fists against submachine guns, but Sam wasn't doing to stop to ponder that one. It was probably Steve's adrenaline making him forget that not everything could be pounded in with punches. Not that these guys couldn't use a good ass whooping, but Steve would get riddled with bullets before he could give it to them.

Closer than before, Sam had much better and tighter shots. The targets were on his left, and he was now able to aim away from civilians. A fair number of them were abandoning their cars near this shoot out. Smart. Insurance would replace their cars, but their lives were irreplaceable.

Sam sent out a wave of burst fire that caught three men in the head and another one across the torso. He couldn't be sure if he was down for good, but that was definitely four left standing and swinging their guns around like maniacs. "Man, your trigger discipline sucks!" he shouted out at them before ducking behind a car. He scuttled across the concrete as low down as he could, heading for one of the other fallen submachine guns. He was still good, but his mama didn't raise a fool. There was another gun close by, and it would look intimidating as hell if he shot the remaining guys with two guns.

In the hail of bullets at his prior direction, Sam scooted further forward. It changed his angle to shoot and where he was shooting from, so he let out another burst of fire. There were shouts on the other side of the abandoned cars, but he didn't know if he hit one or not. Steve finally got smart and took off from the scene. He vaulted over the same railing that the Winter Soldier had, and it sounded like he landed on the same car. Not as heavily, but he didn't have a metal arm to contend with.

One less thing to worry about, then. Sam pressed his lips together grimly and stayed focused, adrenaline coursing through him. He hadn't expected this to happen when he threw in his lot with Captain America and the Black Widow, but hey. There were worse problems to have.

And if he was able to maneuver around to his trunk, he could get his wings and then these goons would _really_ see what they were up against.

***

Natasha could hear the chatter of gunfire behind her and the screams of civilians on either side of her. They were listening to her and scattering in their panic, at least. She wouldn't have those lives hanging in the balance over her head. There were enough lives in her ledger as it was, she wasn't ready to add more to it.

Taking pot shots at the Winter Soldier was terrifying and exhilarating at once. Fuzzy memories were being shaken loose in the back of her head, but she would deal with those later. Now wasn't the time for a trip back to the past; she had a feeling these memories would be from the Red Room, and those were hardly ever pleasant to revisit anyway. He would catch up to her and kill her if she wasn't fast enough. The Winter Soldier never cared about his own wellbeing, only about getting the job done. That was partly what made him so formidable. The fact that he had so many skills made up the rest of his mystique.

Ducking behind a concrete column, Natasha pulled out a phone. It was the higher end of the burners that she had brought with her, and she would be sorry to give it up. But she needed a decoy if she was going to outlast the Winter Soldier; she wasn't going to be able to get the drop on him unless she was fast and smart. He was too heavily armed and armored otherwise, and she had only whatever she could hide in civilian clothes.

If he shot her, he would kill her.

This was a deadly form of hide and seek, and she set up the burner phone on the ground propped up against a car's tire. She veered off in a different direction, hiding behind another column so that she would have a view when the Winter Soldier arrived.

Wait. Line up the shot. Don't hesitate. Don't miss.

But she missed.

The bullet that tore through her shoulder knocked the wind right out of her, and she slammed into a minivan. The Winter Soldier stalked forward, no sign of humanity in his gaze as his eyes fell on her. They were blank, as if he was nothing more than a programmed automaton, a flesh and blood robot at Hydra's beck and call.

 _Don't you recognize me?_ she nearly cried out, but swallowed it down. If she was going to die, she was going to die with dignity, dammit.

Steve crashing into a car in the distance grabbed his attention. The Winter Soldier turned his head, and she could almost see the shifting paradigms in his gaze. Main target back in sights, proceed to main target.

Natasha was only a secondary target. If she was primary, she would be dead right now.

Pushing herself up to her feet using the side of the van for leverage, Natasha took a deep breath. The movement hurt her shoulder, but that was the pain of torn muscle protesting, not the hiss of air running out of a punctured lung. Good. Still functional. Still able to fulfill her own mission, even if it was an assignment of her own choosing.

Assess. Reassess. Recategorize. Prioritize.

The Winter Soldier and Steve were going at it hand to hand. His submachine gun had been dropped thoughtlessly en route to Steve, and Natasha staggered forward to retrieve it. Sloppy, but it showed the flaws in the programming that Hydra gave the Winter Soldier.

Punch, block, parry, kick. The Winter Soldier grabbed a kabar knife from his side, flipped it across his fingers and swung, but Steve blocked it. How did he have his shield? Natasha had lost sight of him when she had run from Sam's car. He must have retrieved it then. The flashes of light bouncing off its polished surface didn't even bother the Winter Soldier, but then, there had never been any problems with his vision.

 _He has a purity of purpose you'd do best to emulate,_ a Russian woman's voice said, a whisper of memory she had wanted to forget.

Steve swung his shield, knocking it right into the Winter Soldier's face mask, dislodging it. He pulled back to land another punch, making the Soldier stagger a step. Shaking himself out, the Winter Solder took another step forward so he could rip off his face mask. 

Freezing in place, Steve lowered his shield and stood up straighter, relaxing his guard. He stared incredulously in front of him. "Bucky?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?" the Winter Soldier snarled, rushing forward with his knife in hand.

Natasha wanted to cry out a warning, but Steve reacted quickly. He brought up the shield to block the knife and then used it to bash the Winter Soldier's hand. Though the knife dropped, he twisted to catch it by the blade in his metal hand. Throwing his torso back to dodge the jab that Steve aimed at his head, the Soldier flipped the knife to catch it by the hilt and stab forward, aiming for Steve's gut.

He skipped back and curled his abs to arc around the blade's swing. As the Soldier recovered his position to stand, Steve swung the shield again, bashing it against the side of his head. The soldier grunted as Steve said "I hate to do this, Bucky," with a pant from the effort.

"Who. The. Hell. Is. Bucky?" the Soldier panted, a swing of the knife punctuating each word.

Reaching the discarded gun, Natasha staggered to get it and braced herself against another van left behind on the street. She brought the submachine gun, pushing past the pain in her shoulder, taking careful aim. Shooting into melee was never a good idea, but she had her own sharpshooter training years ago, and knew she wouldn't miss if she was careful.

 _But you did miss,_ she chided herself, lining up the shot as the Winter Soldier and Steve kept throwing punches and kicks. _Because some part of you doesn't want to kill him. Because you remember, even if he doesn't..._

Shutting up the ghost of a memory, Natasha squeezed the trigger as soon as there was an opening, making sure to maintain eye contact with her intended target.

Recoil had her hitting the van and swallowing the scream of pain she wanted to emit. The shot landed true, right in the center of the Winter Soldier's chest. He had armor plating, but even that wasn't enough to prevent the slug from deforming the plate and striking his sternum. He was thrown backward, onto the concrete, the other knife he was reaching for skittering away from them both. Steve glanced back at her, taking in the wound in her shoulder and the strained expression on her face, then glanced back at the Solder.

He was getting to his feet, ignoring the breath knocked out of him, ignoring the hits to the head that he had taken. "Go down," Steve pleaded, but the Winter Soldier ignored them. "Why are you doing this? Why don't you remember me?"

"Report!" a voice barked over the earpiece that had been knocked loose. It sounded like Brock Rumlow, which had Steve gritting his teeth in anger. "I'm closing in on your position. Police are on the way, you can't be seen!"

The Winter Soldier didn't say anything, and ripped out the earpiece, tossing it aside. His eyes weren't quite as blank, and he stared at Steve. "Who are you?"

It was sheer agony on Steve's face. "Don't you remember, Buck?"

"There is no Buck. No Bucky," the Winter Soldier intoned, advancing forward. All he had were his hands now. The weapon sheaths and straps on his body were all empty, guns and knives scattered everywhere. "I am the Asset."

"We have to go," Natasha called out, hearing the sirens.

Brock Rumlow came into view. He was dressed like all the other suited and helmeted men that had been on the overpass, except for the helmet. He took in the display in front of him, and the smile on his face was chilling. "Stand down, Soldier," he called. "Incoming will pick these up. You have to report to Pierce."

Which meant he had no intention of ever letting them loose.

Natasha slid down the side of a car and tried to stay conscious. She was still bleeding, and the effort to stay upright was too much. But Rumlow's reinforcements were coming, and she had to cover Steve as best as she could.

The Winter Soldier stared at Steve for a moment, not even flinching when he flung the shield at Rumlow's head. It connected, then rebounded off the concrete pillar next to him, then off to another incoming armored man. He said nothing, and looked over to Natasha on the ground nearby. Without a word he kicked over one of his pistols, with just enough force to ensure that it skidded across the concrete and landed within reach. He left, walking with the same purpose he had stalked forward to get to her and Steve. Of course Steve would try to chase him down, getting into the fray with the armored men and Rumlow himself. For each one that went down, more kept coming, spilling out of the back of an armored van.

Shadows loomed large over her, and she lifted her guns to shoot. She was low on ammo, but made every shot count and even threw the pistol to try to knock out another Hydra goon when the bullets ran out. 

But there was only so much she could do when outmanned and outgunned, fighting to even stay conscious. An artery must have been nicked, given how much blood she could feel beneath her jacket. Natasha was sure she was going to bleed out. This was how she had expected to die, but she didn't think it would happen _now._

The Hydra goons that collected her and eventually Sam and Steve were all in black, complete with helmets that had opaque visors. It was a cowardly thing to do, so that they could hide their true identity and not announce that they were really Hydra instead of SHIELD. The only one that didn't bother to hide his face was Brock Rumlow, the bastard. That meant that STRIKE was likely compromised, since he headed up that team.

Did that mean other STRIKE teams were compromised as well?

If she survived this, she would have to get the true SHIELD agents out of deep cover and back into a safe place. She would have to do a deep dive into active cases, some of which might be over her actual clearance, in order to determine where those agents were, once she was able to determine who wasn't Hydra. Or maybe she could do the _good_ thing, get them all back, then sort it out. Natasha knew what it was like to twist in the wind, and not every SHIELD agent was as paranoid as she had learned to be. They would rely on SHIELD safe houses and contact links, not knowing that Hydra was on the rise wearing SHIELD issue gear.

Who knew fighting off the Convergence so publicly would scare Hydra into trying to eradicate them all at once? Why was doing the right thing punished so hard?

Sam, bless him, was still trying to fight the good fight, even if he was cuffed and in transit to whatever lockdown unit Rumlow would've arranged. The surprise was one of the helmeted goons hitting the other with the taser stick until they slumped over unconscious.

Maria Hill removed the helmet and shoved her hair out of her face. "Finally. That thing was squeezing my brain." She took a closer look at Sam, assessing him. "Who's this?"

Steve looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Where have you been?" he asked instead. "Other than threatening agents with hollow points?"

She narrowed her eyes back at him. "There are things you're not aware of that I had to be. That was a precaution, and it served its purpose."

That wasn't a good enough answer for Steve, and the way he clenched his jaw said that more clearly than words would have. Maria pressed her lips together, not happy with his response, and turned to Natasha. "We'll get you patched up. There's a lot you need to know."

Natasha looked at her with a bleary expression, and remained silent.

Too much had happened that day which needed processing.

***  
***


	8. The Man On The Bridge

Shannon had quietly made a list of her patients and friends that she didn't believe were Hydra agents. She knew that Gray was doing the same. Loki didn't know enough people to do something like that, but would dutifully create portals so that the two could talk to people they knew, no matter where they were. He also had secrecy spells that could muffle the sounds of conversations, just in case the usual SHIELD tech was being hacked by Hydra agents. No one knew who would be Hydra, what they had in equipment and what they were or weren't listening in on.

Paranoia was exhausting.

This seemed to be just the thing to pull Loki out of his funk, however. He had a use. He had a purpose. Even if it was just helping transport Shannon to New York to talk to her former roommate Gina and the Maximoff twins in upstate New York, then some of her friends in the science department of the old Putnam facility, he was doing _something_ other than feeling sorry for himself. He had also put his mind to the puzzle of trying to keep her safe in case she was on a Hydra hitlist, while making sure it was a subtle protection.

The visit to her former duplex seemed to solve that problem for him. Loki took note of all the necklaces and rings that Wanda wore, and smiled after bringing Shannon back to California. She took in the satisfied set to his shoulders and tilted her head. "What is it?" 

"You don't wear a lot of jewelry the way Wanda does."

"No."

"But one piece you _always_ wear, that no one would expect you to ever take off, is your engagement ring."

"Right," Shannon said, looking at him. She didn't understand what he was getting at, but he was still clearly pleased with himself. "What? What are you thinking?"

"I anchor the protection spells to your engagement ring."

She blinked at him and then opened her mouth in surprise. "Oh! That's perfect! I never take it off, while I do take off my watch or jewelry."

Loki nodded, then paused. "Your intended does not have a similar charm that he wears. I will not be able to protect him."

"You think he'd be a target?" Shannon asked, startled.

"He is a good man. You would not have chosen him otherwise. And if this is a search to eliminate the trustworthy and righteous, he will also die."

Shannon flinched. "I didn't think of it that way. Just that it would be SHIELD vs. Hydra."

"That would be easiest, but isn't likely the truth."

She shivered and nodded. "Right. You're right. Because it wouldn't be just SHIELD. They'd never get away with screwing with SHIELD if they didn't have backup higher up." She looked at him with a miserable expression. "So that means what? Police? Military? Government?"

"I would assume so."

 _"Aiya,_ isn't there anyone trustworthy?"

"You are. Miguel is. Daniel is. Henry is. Gina is." He paused in the face of her shock. "I would also count the twins and the Avengers." He paused again as she nodded thoughtfully. "I would _not_ trust Director Hill. She is the same as Director Fury was, and he always had his own agenda in mind."

"Well, now we do, too."

Loki smiled, though he appeared haunted more than satisfied. "Everyone used to call me reckless and selfish, that I was nothing more than a liar."

"I knew there was more than that."

"I am certainly still selfish," he corrected her with a smirk. It almost looked like his old self. "I have to eliminate Hydra. I won't have them eliminating my therapist. No one can eliminate you without my permission."

Shannon snorted. "And you're not about to give that _ever."_

"Exactly," he said, a proud tilt to his jaw.

If someone had told her even a week ago that she would feel safer with Loki than with SHIELD brass, she would've laughed in their faces.

***

To say that seeing Fury alive was a shock was an understatement. Natasha had gone very still very quickly, and Steve could practically feel the hurt coming off her in waves. She didn't care about pain reduction strategies when the medic was patching her up or trying to run fluids to replace what she had lost. Fury had to realize that she felt betrayed and alone by one of the few in the world that she actually trusted, but he didn't seem to care. Steve tuned out the explanation about Banner's anti-stress serum lowering his heart rate so much that he appeared dead. He didn't care _how_ Fury managed his own resurrection. He already knew the _why_ of it, given that Pierce was in charge of Project Insight and the STRIKE team.

"It means he's Hydra," Sam said when Natasha wouldn't. "It means everything this place ever stood for is actually fucked up and twisted inside out."

"I wouldn't go that far," Fury protested. "We've done some real good."

Steve tuned out the discussion between them and focused on Natasha's face. It was blank, but not so carefully empty in the way she could do to fool people. No, this was the blankness that came from being so utterly betrayed that she was a carved out husk.

She wasn't meant to be a person, she had said before. She wasn't meant to have limits. She was meant to only be a tool.

And Fury knew that about her, and used her like one.

"We take it all down," Steve said abruptly, turning to stare at Fury. "There's no way to get rid of Hydra without exposing them all and burning them out. They always said 'strike down one head, up come two.' So we have to get rid of them."

"Scorched earth method," Sam said, looking at him with a sick expression.

Steve managed not to flinch at the words. "Shannon said that, too."

"We're on a time limit," Hill said. There might have been sympathy in her tone, but Steve couldn't look her in the face just then. She'd perpetuated Fury's lies. She threatened agents with death to appear heartless and cruel enough for Hydra overseers.

This wasn't the life he was meant to lead, and it sure as hell wasn't what Peggy stood for.

"There are agents out there," Natasha said, her voice taking on a raspy edge. "We can't let them twist in the wind."

"If we warn them, Hydra might go to ground, too."

She looked up at him, eyes hollowed and expression otherwise flat. Steve was startled by the realization that she was going to leave the decision up to him. She didn't trust Fury with that anymore, and she didn't trust herself.

"Project Insight is only hours away," Fury told them, expression grave. "I don't have to tell you how serious this is, and that we have to act quickly."

"Because you let it get this far and now it's an emergency," Steve said, just shy of letting his acidic temper get the best of him. By the twitch in Fury's expression, he knew it was there anyway. The man had never bought into the "aw, shucks I'm just from the 40's, I don't know anything" routine. While it had been refreshing to be seen as competent, he also hated the fact that Fury thought it meant Steve _wanted_ the responsibility.

He took the serum so he could help others. So he could fight the fight that others weren't able to do for themselves. His spirit used to be too big for his body, but the serum enhancements meant that they finally fit together properly.

"I don't think you understand the gravity of this situation," Fury said, obviously displeased with Steve's response.

"Technology and staff out of your control that decides they should eliminate a population that doesn't agree with their ideology," Steve deadpanned. "Yeah, I don't understand that kind of situation at all."

In spite of the tension, Natasha's mouth quirked up in the corner and Sam snickered.

Maria Hill leveled them all with a flat stare. "Let me tell you what we know will happen, and you can decide what to do." She held up a hand when Fury was about to speak. "Members of the World Security Council have been invited to the Triskelion for the initiation of Project Insight. It's a joint SHIELD and CIA venture under Pierce's control, which is why he was able to invite them. From the observation floor, they'll observe the launch of the three helicarriers. They can go as high up as necessary, but would only have to reach three thousand feet in order to connect to the Insight Satellites." She paused, making sure that everyone was paying attention. "While they can execute their programming at any time, it's more likely that once they connect to the satellites, each helicarrier will take on a share of the data and run the AI. We haven't figured out the full extent of what it does—"

"Tony did," Steve told them baldly. "The AI analyzes all available data on the internet, profiles from HR, whatever it can get a hold of." 

Fury froze in place, staring at him with his good eye. "Project Insight's analytic data—"

Steve nodded grimly. "Analyzes everything it can find, then it determines a list of people that it should kill."

Natasha looked down while Sam looked decidedly ill. Maria did too, to her credit. "So the data creates a kill list," Maria said, voice dull. "And once it's all compiled, the helicarriers can start firing at them."

"We need to stop it."

Maria nodded solemnly. "We've had some of our trusted people working on a solution." She retrieved a case with three electronic chips in it. "The only way to prevent this scale of murder is to use replace the targeting chips that are on board with these. That would take away S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control over the helicarriers."

"Who are we giving them control to?" Natasha asked before Steve could.

"A remote location." At Natasha's flat stare, Maria shrugged and licked her lips. "We were thinking here. The engineers that worked on the chips are based here, and they don't have an agenda like we might."

"They still have one," Sam said. "They work for you."

"You're here only as a courtesy," Fury began.

"No, I'm here because I earned my place on the battlefield," Sam countered, folding his arms over his chest. "I was on the other end of a Hydra gun and they were only too happy to pull the trigger on me. No doubt I'll be one of the ones on that kill list."

When Fury still balked, Sam pulled out his phone and started to create a message. "Let's see what Tony Stark thinks about that AI. He got a good look at it, after all."

"How do you know Tony Stark?" Maria asked, startled.

Sam nodded in Steve and Natasha's direction. "Through them." He shook the phone in front of Fury and Maria for emphasis. "How else can we get tricked out burner phones like this? His number's in here for quick reference if we have tech issues, and this sure as hell counts as a tech issue in my book."

When the phone pinged, Sam read the message then put it to speaker. "Hey, man. You're on speaker for everyone to hear."

"Are you guys okay?" Tony asked, clearly worried. "I saw the news report from DC. JARVIS pulled up some really odd chatter from down there, too."

"Well, some people put a bait and switch on us," Natasha said, not taking her eyes away from the phone on the table. "Injured, but we're okay."

"How much do you know?" Fury called out.

Tony sputtered. "What the fuck?"

"He wasn't dead," Natasha told him. Her voice was so cold it sent chills down Steve's spine. "He tricked everyone."

"There were reasons for that," Fury said, though his eyes were on Natasha. "I had to keep the circle small. I figured you would understand."

She turned to look at him, her face an expressionless mask. "I do. And that's the problem."

"Shit. Well, who else knows about this?"

"Very few people, and I plan to keep it that way," Fury intoned.

"Maybe this explains the chatter after all," Tony said, no sign of his usual sarcasm.

"What'd you hear?" Natasha prompted.

"A couple different channels. One was about coded invitations going out to the WSC, one was an underground of some kind. It wasn't entirely clear. I could tell that Hydra's gearing up, now that we know they're active again."

Steve had an awful, terrible thought. "Can you rewrite the AI?"

Tony's pause was long and almost pained. "Maybe?" he replied in an uncertain drawl. "Depends on what you want it to do."

"Target Hydra."

All eyes swiveled to take in Steve, but Natasha gave him a grim nod. They were on the same wavelength with this.

"Hoo, boy," Tony chortled. "I take back a lot of what I've said about you lately. Sorry, Steve. I had you pegged all wrong. I should tell Shannon about that."

"You know, speaking of her... Could Loki help in any way?"

"Or even the kids?" Tony mused. "I know he was teaching Wanda to create a portal, and her brother is wicked fast."

"Can they get to DC?"

"Thanks to portals, hells yeah."

When Fury and Maria were about to say something, Steve lifted a hand. "Then bring them all here where we are." He paused thoughtfully. "Can you figure out exactly where we are? With all the concrete blocking the signals..."

Tony scoffed at the idea. "My satellites are better than SHIELD's, safe to say. I can triangulate the signal even with it bounced around all over the place."

"So yeah, I would really appreciate you being here right now."

"Aw. I do feel loved and appreciated," he sing songed. Sam rolled his eyes and Natasha gave a rueful shake of her head. Maria was irritated and Fury had that angry-but-not-wanting-to-show-it face on. It was rather like the military reactions to Howard's antics, and Steve found himself grinning at them all in spite of the danger.

As awful as the situation was, he had people at his back. These weren't his Howlies, they weren't his Bucky, but they were still his people. They would protect him just as he would protect them, and that was something he would always cherish.

"Then I'm calling it. This is Avengers business."

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Tony chortled. This time, it was definitely tinged with respect and not his usual mockery. "Backup is on its way."

Sam hung up as Steve leveled Fury with a glare. "We're going to do this, and we're going to do this _my way."_

Natasha's mouth quirked up a bit as she took in his stance. "Captain's orders."

Fury glowered but said nothing.

***  
***


	9. Consolidating Allies

"I know what you're thinking," Sam said, following Steve outside when he needed air. Fury of course wanted to seize control of the situation, but Steve wasn't having it.

"What am I thinking?" Steve asked, resisting the urge to take the stairs two at a time. Sam was his friend, and Sam had a far more emotionally neutral view of everything.

Steve was _seething._ He was in exquisite emotional pain. If not, he would be comforting Natasha right now, because her entire worldview had been rocked _again_ and he had all but left her to Fury's mercy. But he couldn't deal with her emotional drama until he had dealt with his, and he was sure she would understand it.

"You're going to go after the Soldier, aren't you?" Sam asked bluntly.

Stopping cold, Steve shivered. "I know he's done terrible things as the Winter Soldier. But I think somewhere in there, deep down, is the friend I used to have. The guy I left behind, even if I didn't know that I did."

Sam heaved a sigh, but it looked like Steve had only confirmed what he had been thinking. "What if there's no going back?" he asked. "What if he's not the kind you save?"

"I can't go in believing that."

"I know," Sam murmured. "And I'm not pushing you to. But maybe you need a plan in case there's no way to get him back. This Hydra thing..." His voice trailed off. "This is the first I'm dealing with it, but you've fought them before. And they've kept coming back." He paused and shoved his hands in his jacket pocket, shoulders slumping. "I don't want you getting lost in the process of fighting them."

"Like when I put down in the ice," Steve said, feeling a chill settle in his spine.

"History books said that there was a bomb on the plane and no parachute. Sounds like it was a lose-lose scenario no matter what you did," Sam replied flatly. "But right now, today, you've got more backup than you used to have. You don't have to go it alone."

Steve let out a slow and steady breath. "I don't even know how to start, Sam. Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky. I can't just leave him to Hydra. He didn't remember me, didn't even recognize me, and we grew up together. We practically lived in each others' pockets. So they did something to him, and I know shit like that happened to Natasha when she was a kid. I can't let them keep doing this to people!"

Approaching slowly, giving Steve an exit if he needed it, Sam pulled his hands out of his pockets and touched Steve's arm. "Hey. You're not alone, here. That's all I got to say. You should consider all the angles, all the possibilities. Be prepared as much as you can be."

"How do you prepare for this?" Steve asked, voice raw.

Sam pulled him in for a tight hug. "Maybe you don't," he murmured. "I don't know. This is new to me. I'm a soldier, man. Pararescue. So it was about diving in and getting the hell outta there so that the hard work could be done."

"D'you think that would work here?"

"We're diving in to change targeting chips and the AI programming. I sure as shit don't want to be there when Hydra finds out what we did."

Steve couldn't help but laugh at that, and pulled back to look at Sam's grin. "I'm being a dope, aren't I?"

"I think you'd be dumb if you didn't freak out a little."

He nodded. "C'mon. Let's go check on Natasha. I don't think she's doing as good as she wants us to think she is."

"That Fury's a piece of work."

"God, I'm so not a spy."

They fist bumped and Sam nodded. "Me neither. Probably why we get along so well. Natasha's just cool. And scary, but cool."

Laughing, they headed back into the bunker.

***

Natasha was avoiding the former Director and quietly chatting with the current one, though her posture was stiff. Steve doubted that it was due to pain in her shoulder; he'd seen her in action, knew she would be able to fight through serious injuries if it was the only option available to her. No, this was because she was upset, and she didn't feel safe enough voicing it.

"Hey," he called out, drawing her attention from Maria. "I need your help, Nat."

The relief in her eyes was palpable, and Steve was fully aware that it was quite the gift for her to trust him with this. She didn't think she was trustworthy, possibly given her background, but she trusted so few people now. Fury probably didn't understand just what he had done in excluding her from his plans, treating her like any other SHIELD agent.

She huddled with him and Sam in an empty conference room. Her phone was on the table in front of them, a program running to sense any extra listening devices in the area. They perched on the edges of uncomfortable chairs as close to each other as possible. "I don't want you to strain the injury any more than you have to," Steve told her.

"I'll be okay. I figure you'll need me in charge of infiltration."

Sam looked between her and Steve. "So, uh, you plan out how everything should go?"

Steve looked affronted. "Hey, I was going to—"

Natasha snorted. "If you want subtlety, you ask me. You want a grand speech and a very pretty but visible entrance, ask Steve."

"Did you just call me pretty?" Steve asked with a twist of his lips that wasn't quite a smile.

Patting his chest through his shirt, she smiled. "Of course I did. Now, let's get down to business. We should play to each of our strengths."

"Meaning I go in for the pretty speeches," Steve guessed.

She grinned. "You're really good at them."

"They're completely off the cuff!" he protested.

"But so sincere," she replied.

"Very heartfelt," Sam agreed when Steve looked at him. "I get so damn inspired."

"Now I _know_ you're messing with me."

As much as Natasha smiled at him, he knew she was sincere as well. "Not everyone in SHIELD is dirty. Lay it out for everyone in the Triskelion, and we'll draw out the Hydra agents that had infiltrated and put everyone at risk."

Steve nodded slowly. "Because I can take the hit, but they probably can't."

"Exactly. Like I said, we play to our strengths."

"So does that mean I get to play with my wings?" Sam asked, lips quirked.

"I may have sent an agent out to get them out of your trunk," Natasha said innocently. Her grin belied that, and Sam grinned at her in response. "That's why Hill wanted to talk to me. She didn't like that I appropriated an agent without her knowledge."

"Why? Would she have said no?"

Natasha shook her head. "No. She's going to help us, actually. But she wanted in."

"More cohesion and visibility, then?" Steve guessed.

"More than her predecessor," Natasha said, eyes sliding away from his and her voice tight.

Still upset and disillusioned. Fury would have to do a lot to make it up to her.

There was a commotion in the entrance, shouting and the sound of desperation. They all exchanged glances, agreeing without words to table their conversation for now. Sam helped Natasha to her feet, and they all left the conference room.

Wanda and Tony were there, as well as a blur that had to be Pietro. They all looked distressed, and Tony sagged in relief when he saw the trio approach them. "Thank God. Tell them the kids are okay? I need to go back and help—"

The SHIELD guard leveled a submachine gun at Tony's chest when he tried to step forward. His betrayed expression was enough to make Steve see red. He strode forward and ripped the gun out of the guard's hands and threw it across the room. Noise all around them stopped abruptly, various agents now at a standstill watching.

"What happened?" Steve demanded.

Pietro finally stopped moving. His expression was ashen, and he had wide eyes. "Gina was trying to kill us."

_"What?"_

Natasha pushed forward and planted herself in front of him. "What did you just say?"

Wanda was shaking, and nodded when Pietro began to run laps again to work off some of his nervous energy. "We were staying with her, you know this. She always encouraged our studies, and after a phone call this morning, something changed in her. She looked at us differently. Like we're a science experiment."

Stopping, Pietro put his arm around her and held her tightly. "She tried to strangle her to get the necklace she wears."

"The stone," Natasha said, horror dawning as she took in the thick silver chain mostly hidden by Wanda's layered black and red shirts. "The Scepter disappeared from her house, but she always said she didn't want to study it."

"Maybe _she_ doesn't," Wanda said bitterly, shivering, "but someone else does. Her parents are being threatened, but what I saw in her eyes wasn't regret."

"We need to tell Shannon," Natasha told Steve. "If she goes there—"

Tony winced. "Shit. They're not here, then."

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked, a rising feeling of dread in his gut.

"Horns came to the Tower because we were all going to meet there before coming here. They were there when the twins arrived." Tony looked around and took in the shocked faces. His own expression hardened when he took in Fury still alive. "So they're not here."

Steve looked at Wanda and Pietro. "I'm not going to ask you to go back if you don't feel safe. But I know that Dr. Tran means a lot to a few people, and I don't think we want to tempt Loki into doing something he can't walk back from."

Sam rubbed his face tired. "Good God, how many people do we have to save?"

"Feels like the entire goddamn world right now," Tony muttered.

"You're probably not wrong." Natasha winced at the pull in her shoulder when she turned.

The movement drew Wanda's attention. "You're hurt."

"Shot on the street," she said shortly. "I'm still mission ready, don't doubt that."

Wanda had a horrified expression, and then she stepped forward with the red magic glowing around her hands. "Not injured! Not like this."

Before anyone could protest, the magic wrapped around Natasha's shoulder and then sank beneath her skin. Her mouth opened and her eyes were wide, a red glow visible through her clothing. Natasha didn't seem to be writhing in pain, but she was definitely shocked.

After the glow faded, Natasha rolled her shoulder experimentally. She nodded appreciatively at Wanda. "Thanks. That would've taken months to be fully back up to speed."

"That's happened before?" she asked, a thread of horror in her voice.

Natasha only shrugged. "Sometimes I'm not fast enough to dodge the bullets."

Steve didn't want to admit that the statement caused him just as much dismay as it had for Wanda. She had been a tool, he knew that, but to hear in all the little ways how much she had internalized that hurt him.

Pressing her lips together, Wanda seemed to come to a decision. "I know Shannon thinks the best of most people. And that Gina's her best friend. I think she'd try to do something to change her mind, or think that Gina's being coerced in some way. She's not."

"We'll give her a call—" Steve began.

Wanda was already creating a portal. "I'll let you through, and you go get them. Hopefully she won't attack you."

"Shannon's with Loki and Agent Gray," Steve reasoned.

Reality shimmered red and then a gateway into the duplex apartment's living room opened. It was in shambles, and there was the distant sound of sobbing.

Sam was already heading through as Steve sighed. "Stay here." He wasn't terribly surprised that Natasha was heading through as well. She hadn't personally vetted Gina, but the two had joked and hung out because of Gina's crush on her. This probably felt like a horrible betrayal, another piece of evidence that she couldn't trust her gut.

Though he expected to feel something different as he passed through the portal into New York, it didn't feel like anything. Wanda's portal was like a doorway more than a transporter from scifi movies, which he was glad about. It was strange enough feeling like a science experiment on most days, and having more of the old pulp stories coming true would be terrible.

Steve hadn't been in Shannon's old place before, but the bones of the duplex were good. He was in the middle of the living room, and off to his left was the foyer to the front door. Ahead of him was the breakfast nook and kitchen, and off to the right were the stairs up and a bathroom as well as what looked like a linen closet based on how narrow the door was. The bones of the house were good, and the furnishings all looked comfortable and chosen with care. Unfortunately, they were tossed aside, and the pictures on the wall were askew. There were gouges in one wall as well as a broken railing on the stairs.

Natasha was kneeling on the floor as Sam stood there awkwardly. As Steve came closer, he could see why. Gina Skoglund was sprawled across the floor, limbs askew as if she had fallen through the broken railing. Her dark hair was spread around her, a halo matted with blood. Eyes staring up at the ceiling lifelessly, her final expression was one of disbelief. Lying on the floor beyond her outstretched hand was a Glock that had fallen out of her grip, and Steve had never known that she even had one. Science officers on site never had to use weapons, even if they had to qualify on the range to start with.

Rising to her feet, Natasha looked up at the broken railing, then moved to the upstairs. The sobbing was up there, wracking and ugly sounds that would've made an entire body shake. Steve followed her, sure that the immediate danger was over.

Across the landing, Agent Miguel Gray was sprawled across the floor. Loki had one hand glowing green-gold over his stomach and his other arm slung around Shannon's shoulders. She was sitting on the floor beside them, legs bent at uncomfortable looking angles as she sobbed inconsolably with her hands over her face. Her shoulders and head were bent and shaking with the force of her sobs, hair falling over her face and her headband askew. Loki appeared green and sickly, not just because of the magic lighting up his face from beneath his chin. A fine sheen of sweat beaded his temples, and his hair was mussed.

"What happened?" Natasha asked gently, moving to kneel beside them. Steve remained on the edge of the stairs, not wanting to crowd the small hallway, and heard Sam move to the foot of the stairs, step light and hesitant.

Loki's eyes flicked up to Natasha. "The children are safe?"

"Wanda got from the Tower to DC," Natasha said.

He gave the briefest of nods, no more than a twitch of his head, and then looked down at the spreading blood of Gray's abdomen. Steve watched him swallow thickly and try to push more magic into the wound, but it only made him groan in pain.

Steve thought he could figure out the sequence of events that led to this. Shannon likely thought she could confront Gina, find out if Hydra was coercing her best friend into doing something terrible for them. While Wanda said her family was being threatened, Gina hadn't been forced into anything. She was an agent that believed in what she was doing, and obviously was able to be friends with those she didn't share ideology with. Shannon and Wanda hadn't thought of Gina as evil, after wall. _Gina_ hadn't thought of herself as evil. She had lived and loved and done her work, but also believed in the ideals that Hydra espoused.

Shannon would never believe that Gina was capable of undermining the work that SHIELD was meant to do. She wanted to believe the best in everyone and would've trusted Gina implicitly. To come here and find out that she was so wrong would've broken her heart.

Judging by the mess downstairs, it came down to a struggle. Steve didn't know who would've thrown the punches, who would've tossed things around. Maybe Loki, he had the strength for it and would've been upset on Shannon's behalf. Frightened or desperate, Steve didn't know which it would be, Shannon would've raced up the stairs. Gray would've tried to defuse the situation, and would've put himself in between them. That would put Gina in easy reach of his service pistol, though Steve couldn't imagine why she would even want to reach for it. Either way, she did it, and started threatening them with the gun. Then the tension between them all would've ratcheted up even higher. In the struggle, Gray was shot in the abdomen and Gina was pushed backward down the stairs, killing her.

The real question would've been who pushed her, Shannon or Loki. Ultimately, it didn't matter to him one way or another, because he didn't blame them whatsoever.

Instead of asking, Steve turned to Sam. "See if Wanda can get up here and heal him."

Hearing that, Loki's head twitched again, and his lips trembled. He looked at Gray, who seemed to be more unconscious than aware of his surroundings.

Shannon looked up then, her face a mess of misery and hope. "There are limits to magic," she whispered, voice breaking.

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. "But she fixed my shoulder..."

Gray's breath rattled in his chest, and Shannon's breath caught. Loki went even paler, the tremors in his hands growing more obvious. "You can't—" he began hoarsely.

By the time Wanda staggered up the steps, Gray was dead.

It was probably a small mercy that he never regained consciousness, but Loki seemed to collapse in on himself. After the space of a breath, he roared in Allspeak and punched the floor, breaking through the floorboards.

"I'll kill her again!" He shouted as he staggered to his feet.

Natasha gracefully got up to her feet, and pushed against Loki's chest. He tried to swat her away irritably, but she ducked and pushed at his chest again. He hit the end of the narrow hallway, right next to the open bathroom door. Behind them, Wanda was shaking and murmuring to Shannon, who was staring numbly at Gray's body.

"She's dead, and Miguel won't be the only casualty if Hydra gets their way," Natasha told Loki, voice firm but not callously cold. "This wasn't the time for that."

"We trusted her," Loki said, his voice small and shaking. "She wanted the stone."

Wanda's hand went to the chain and jewel around her neck. "I never take this off."

"And apparently it wouldn't let her take it from you while you slept," Loki said, eyes skipping past Natasha to Wanda.

"Jesus," Sam said in disgust from his position on the stairway.

"I didn't know she tried," Wanda whispered.

"So when all the Hydra people got activated," Sam said, looking at the others in growing discontent, "she thought it was a good idea to kill her for it?"

Shannon made a hiccupping noise of despair. "She said it was for the good of the world. That there's no time for social niceties anymore."

Steve ran a hand through his hair in frustration as Shannon shuddered. This was getting worse by the minute. How many other sleeper agents were being activated right this second? How many good agents were going to be killed by people that they trusted? How many people were going to be killed as soon as Insight went up that evening?

"Um..." he began, putting his hands on his hips as he blew out a breath. "You guys wouldn't know, but it's worse than this."

"Worse," Shannon echoed hollowly, looking up at him.

He nodded, managing not to wince at the bleak expression on her face. "Hydra was involved with SHIELD for decades, got top positions in all aspects of government." She nodded, having heard that part before. "Well, they're probably about to mass murder everyone that could potentially oppose their plans for domination."

As those that hadn't been at Fury's bunker sputtered, Natasha stepped out of Loki's way and shared a look with Steve. "Don't worry. He's got a plan to kill them right back."

"We're in," Shannon said immediately. "We always were."

Everyone else agreed instantly.

***  
***


	10. Formulating A Plan

Shannon was clearly in shock when she was deposited at a table in the bunker. Her lips parted when she saw Fury walking around, but she didn't say anything. She stared, expression otherwise blank, looking for all the world like the shell shocked soldiers Steve had seen on the battlefield in World War II or released from Zola's cages. He wanted to say something, offer comfort or give her hope, but he didn't know what to say. Natasha said that he was the one to give speeches, to look pretty and inspire, but he didn't feel very inspirational at all.

He felt just as betrayed as she and the others did.

"I don't know what comes next. I don't know if there will be something better if we bring this all down. Maybe there's no phoenix from the ashes. Maybe there shouldn't be one."

She looked up, no change in her expression. "Vietnamese tradition holds that the phoenix is one of the four sacred animals. They all mean something, and the phoenix is supposed to symbolize loyalty, faithfulness, grace and duty." Her lips trembled and she tried to smile at Steve, but her eyes began to water. When she couldn't hold his gaze, she dropped her eyes to the floor and shook her head. He waited her out, not sure what he should say in response.

When it was clear he wasn't going to say anything, she sighed and looked up. "There has to be a phoenix, Steve. The world doesn't work without one. We have to have something to hope for, or else what's the point? Why work so hard? Why _try?"_

Steve pulled up a chair and pulled her cold, clammy hands into his. "I know we need something, but I don't know if I'm the right one to make the call."

Her laughter was hollow as she looked back up at him. "If Captain America can't make the right call, no one can."

He flinched. "I don't feel like Captain America all the time."

Shannon shook her head. "No, not as in the title. As in _you._ You were made Captain America not because you're doing things that people want, but because it's the right thing to do. Because you embody everything we're supposed to be."

"No pressure," he said wryly, lips twisting.

"She's right," Loki said, approaching them. He hadn't changed his clothes, which were still spattered with blood. He looked just as much a wreck as Shannon did, and Steve couldn't help but let go of Shannon's hands to reach out to him and pull him closer. "You're the good one, you know. Truth and justice and all that rot."

Loki's voice was raw, emotions skating too close beneath the surface that he couldn't hide them as well as he obviously wanted to. Steve let him save face and didn't comment on that part, only squeezed his arm in support and nodded.

"Sometimes it's hard to feel it. To be a symbol instead of a man."

"You're both at once," Shannon said, her voice so small and quiet that Steve wanted to pull her into a hug and promise it would be okay again.

"They need a symbol," Loki told him, shaking his head slowly. "They need someone to rally behind. That's what helped your Avengers defeat me, wasn't it? You all had a rally point, and I was spread too thin."

Steve managed not to wince at the memory of Coulson dying, of the bloody cards scattered across the desk. "Maybe that's one way to look at it..."

Loki nodded. "Hydra will seek to destroy you, but the others, the ones who are genuine..." His voice fractured, and Loki looked away, shoulders slumping. "He knew I trusted him," he said in a quiet voice. "But I didn't call him friend. I didn't tell him..."

"He knew," Steve said, giving in and pulling Loki in for a hug. "He had to've known. You shielded him from threats. You worked close together, you hung out together even when not working. What else is that but friendship?"

"Colleagues," Loki bit out. "I didn't call him friend. He didn't _know."_

Steve saw Shannon shudder out of the corner of his eye, but didn't turn his head. "You've worked together for a year. Constantly. Day in, day out. You get close to people when you work together that much like that, and..." He let out a helpless breath. "Not everything needs to be said to be known, Loki. Like you don't have to tell me that you don't want to kill us for me to know that you won't. There doesn't have to be an announcement for me to know you're with us on this, that you're not Hydra and you'd kill 'em if you could."

"I am skilled with sword and staves, but those are not the weapons of your world."

"Your magic—"

Loki's lips twisted in derision. "Would the _seiðr_ truly work in a situation like this? It's illusions and warping perceptions. I haven't the same skill with the _spá_ as some."

He leveled a long look at him. "Illusions and perceptions are plenty useful here. C'mon. I had the start of something I was planning, but if you're in, then I think we've got a better shot."

Shannon nodded at Loki when he glanced at her. Maybe it was confirmation that he needed, because his eyes skipped back to Steve and he nodded stiffly before pulling his shoulders back to sit up straight. "There will be time to grieve later."

"Damn right. We'll sleep when we're dead." He pulled Loki to his feet and turned to Shannon. "Sorry, but you're not a combatant..."

Her lips warbled in a sad smile. "Someone needs to stay behind to pick up the pieces. That was always my role in this."

"I was going to ask if you could coordinate?"

She shook her head. "Get someone that's used to running ops like that. I'm even more behind the scenes than that."

Steve nodded sharply toward her and then turned to Loki. "Main conference room."

Natasha, Sam, Tony, Wanda, Pietro and Maria Hill were already there. Pietro was drumming his fingers on the table so fast that his fingers were a blur. Wanda was staring at the table, expression lost and fragile. The others were used to loss and struggle, but this was still a heavy blow; that was the case even for Tony, who had thought of SHIELD as an honest organization.

"Hydra was growing under our noses all this time," Steve said without preamble as Loki slid into a seat beside Wanda. "Howard and Peggy put together this group to protect people, and Hydra basically thumbed their noses at that sacrifice. Hydra in my day tried to get into everything and at every level they could within the Nazi organization. I can only assume that they did the same thing with SHIELD."

"That's why Nick did what he did," Maria said, voice even. She was obviously aware that the others didn't want to trust her, and wouldn't even make eye contact. Natasha was talking to her, but her posture was too stiff.

"Not that his opinion isn't important, but he's not running the show anymore. He was working in the shadows, and that's exactly where Hydra likes to be. We have to take it to the open, bust it all wide enough that they can't hide ever again."

"Even if it takes SHIELD down?" Maria asked, looking at him.

"It can't be run the way it was," Steve told her flatly. "Tony's got a new program we can install to overwrite the AI they have on the helicarriers, but we can't leave things as they were. Any Hydra survivors will just burrow their way right back in."

"And the shooter?" Sam asked quietly.

"He's a pawn."

Natasha shook her head. "Rook. Pawns are expendable, and he was always meant to be the solid piece you didn't see coming. He was the ghost that got pulled out when a job absolutely had to be done. When you can't be bothered with rules or regs."

"And let's face it, who else would be able to go toe to toe with Cap?" Tony asked, eyebrow raised. He had a tablet in hand and was looking over snippets of footage that had been uploaded to the internet from cell phone captures as well as some of the security footage from nearby buildings. "Though really, if he's supposed to be a ghost, what does it mean if his face is plastered all over the internet?"

"That he isn't necessary any longer," Natasha said quietly, looking over at Steve. "Because why do you need an assassin like that if you can simply kill everyone all at once?"

Steve winced. "I'm not going to pretend that I don't want to save him. That's Bucky under there, and I won't leave him again."

"He'll be going after you," Loki said quietly. "Because that history of friendship you remember will be a weakness. Hydra would exploit that in the hopes that he kills you."

Rubbing his jaw tiredly, Steve let his shoulders slump and he heaved a sigh. "Let me worry about that, okay? You have to protect the World Security Council and switch the targeting chips so that they target Hydra instead of civilians."

"You're deliberately making yourself a target?" Wanda cried.

Pietro stilled and stared at him. "You're suicidal."

"If everyone sees me as a symbol, then that's what I'll be," Steve said. "I know it's not ideal, but the people will rally around me. The ones still working for the good of the world will do the right thing if I show up."

"You're being awfully optimistic," Tony sighed.

Steve shrugged. "I'll draw the fire, the rest of you will be safe to do what needs to be done."

"Jesus, Steve," Sam said, uncrossing his arms and shaking his head. "Not what I thought you were going to do."

"And it means that they won't think of it, either."

"You need to stop doing the sacrifice play," Tony told him, jaw set.

Steve shook his head. "Bucky's my battle, I can't ask you to take him on."

"You're not asking."

"You're not doing this alone," Sam said, pointing at him. "Stop planning it as if you are."

"You're not a phoenix," Loki said when Steve was about to protest, eyes glittering. "Don't act as if you are. We have skills."

Pietro looked over him curiously. "Wait. So we're all Avengers, yes?"

Tony pressed his lips together to suppress a smile. "You did want more group activities, Cap."

Rolling his eyes, Steve gave him a wry smile. "Stop throwing my words back at me, Tony."

"Hey, you're so inspiring..."

"Fuck you, Stark," Steve said, smile turning into a grin. "Fine, then. If you're all as crazy as me, this is what we need to do..."

***

Originally, if it was going to be Steve, Sam, Natasha and Maria working together, the priority would be taking out the targeting chips in the helicarriers so that innocents wouldn't be killed. Natasha would try to infiltrate the World Security Council and keep them safe, and expose Pierce as the Hydra member he was. 

With a much larger crew to work with, and the ability to play up to everyone's strengths, there was a greater chance of saving SHIELD from Hydra.

Loki took almost excessive glee in teaching Wanda how to craft an illusion over a body that would pass muster. SHIELD had a few photostatic veils in their bunker that could change facial appearance, and that would work better for Pietro. "He moves too fast to truly layer on the spell work," Loki told her. "He could possibly stay still if I did it, but since we have some of their equipment..." He shrugged at Pietro's scowl. "This is the first time she's trying it, can you really hold still long enough for her to place it thread by thread?"

"You go faster," he replied. "You could do it."

He nodded. "But my time would be better spent teaching your sister and then getting us to the actual World Security Council members." Something dangerous glittered in his eyes. "They once held my fate in their hands. It would be poetic to return the favor."

"Just remember, you're not supposed to be evil."

Pietro laughed at Loki's irritated expression, then zoomed around the base to pick up potential supplies for a disguise that he and Natasha would need. She preferred to infiltrate the way she knew best, and was more than willing to help Pietro learn how. Loki could focus on the rest of their team, though disguises weren't necessary.

"We need to see Captain America in all his glory," Tony piped up. "And probably me not at all."

"Illusion can certainly help with that."

"Can I say how much nicer it is that you're on our side?" Tony asked him, flashing a wide grin.

Loki huffed and turned away from Tony to face Sam, who was putting on the flight suit and wings he had obviously missed. "Those are fragile," he announced.

"It's a jet pack with extensible wings," Sam said, buckling the last strap. He looked up at Loki, expression questioning. "Why?"

"I'd make adjustments," he said, but then his gaze slid away from Sam and took in Tony, Steve and Natasha staring at him. "If you'd allow it."

Sam only frowned at Loki. "What kind of adjustments? I'm still gonna need to fly."

"Extend the wings, please," Loki said instead, ignoring the others. Sam shrugged and did so, standing still as Loki slowly walked around him. "He's strong, this soldier friend of his," Loki murmured, eyes flicking to Steve. "Perhaps as strong as an Asgardian."

"Please don't break my wings just to prove a point," Sam sighed, turning his head to track Loki's movement.

"Runes," Loki said finally. "The attachment points are weakest, and placing strengthening runes there should give extra strength without losing the flexibility. He's smart, he's strong. And obviously you take out the aerial support before you destroy ground troops."

Tony blinked. "That's right. You studied battle tactics on Asgard."

"Quite," Loki said thinly, expression a mask.

"Should I take this off to put the runes on?" Sam asked, pushing into the awkward pause.

Loki shook his head, then called Wanda over. "Remember when we were discussing _galðr_ in addition to the runes?"

"It should make it stronger," Wanda said, sounding as though she was parroting part of a lesson.

"Watch," Loki told her with a brisk nod.

Loki's baritone chanting was a melodic sound in the echoing chamber of the barracks, and his hands were poised in front of him, palms up to the ceiling as if he was holding something. A slow green tinged glow built up over his palms, then he turned his hands and began to trace the uruz rune over the join of the extended wing to the jet pack. Without breaking the rhythm of his chanting, he slowly walked back around Sam and repeated the runic tracing on the other wing, then right over the center of the jet pack. Once the final thread of the rune sank into the metal, he brought the chant to a close.

"That was beautiful," Steve commented as the sounds died down. "I didn't know magic could look like that."

Finding no scorn in Steve's tone, Loki smiled at him faintly. "It can be."

"No wonder you love it so much." Steve walked up and clapped Loki on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. "Thank you. I never would've thought this could be done."

"You said play to our strengths," Loki replied. He looked as though he wanted to shrug off Steve's touch, but ultimately stayed in place. "Magic is one of my greatest strengths, but hardly the only one."

Sam grinned at him as the wings retracted. "And you're right, they're just as light as before. Thanks, man."

The tension in the others throughout the room eased, but not the tight set to Loki's jaw. He knew full well how others saw him, how wary they were. Steve couldn't blame them, and Loki had to have realized it would happen. Two and a half years after the Battle of New York wasn't long enough to erase the damage he did in the city.

"Tony has the new chips to hunt down Hydra." He looked at Maria. "You're going into the Triskelion to handle security. I'm setting myself up as a target. Natasha, Pietro, Wanda and Loki are helping to protect the Security Council. So that leaves Tony and Sam in charge of actually changing out the chips."

"We're one helicarrier short," Tony commented. "It'll be safer if we change them all at the same time rather than have us meet up at the third." He held up a hand when Maria opened her mouth to speak. "Let's face it, I don't trust SHIELD security not to try to lock you out after you change it the first time, right? I don't think you should abandon that post."

Her posture deflated slightly as she nodded. "Hydra will probably send more goons to change the protocols once they realize I changed them. But sitting and waiting..." Her mouth twisted in displeasure. "Not the position I prefer to take."

Though he opened his mouth and looked ready to make a lewd comment, Tony closed again and nodded sharply. "And no offense, I don't want to pull in Dread Pirate Fury."

"Especially when he's supposed to be dead," Maria said with a nod.

"I can go for the third one after I make the speeches," Steve offered. He held Tony's gaze despite the dubious look he received. "I'm not an idiot, Tony. Tell me how to reprogram the targeting system, and I'll be able to do it."

"You have a rep of not handling technology well."

Steve rolled his eyes. "I can handle computers just fine. I don't know the fancy names you call things, and I'll need a diagram to recognize things, but I'll be able to figure it out when I get there. Tell us what to do."

Tony nodded and gestured for him and Sam to get closer. He had his Starkpad and pulled up the schematics of the Project Insight helicarriers on its screen. "Okay, this is where we have to go," he began, pointing at the route they would have to take.

In the meantime, Loki moved to stand beside Wanda, Natasha and Pietro. "And how are we going to get to the World Security Council before they meet with your tainted superiors?" he asked Natasha with a frown.

"The hard part is that we don't know if any of them are Hydra," Natasha murmured. "But I know who all the current members are, and there's only one woman on it right now."

"There's only so much your photostatic veil can hide," Loki told her. "Are you sure you'd rather go with that than the _seiðr?"_

"I don't know if you have finite spells," she said while shaking her head. "Save them for defense or fighting off Pierce. He's bound to have security staff loyal to him present. The Council is there to watch the helicarriers take off, but he'll likely announce his true intentions then. That way, if there are members who _aren't_ Hydra, it'll be easier to pick them off."

"So again we're back to trying to figure out where they are," Loki said.

Natasha shook her head. "We know everything SHIELD does, which means we know exactly which hotel rooms each member is in." She smiled. "That's why we need your portals."

"How many members are there?"

"Eight besides Pierce," Natasha replied.

Loki looked over at Wanda. "How were your speed trials?"

She winced. "I don't know?"

"Then we're about to find out."

***

Gideon Malick was in his hotel suite, a plush set of rooms close to the Triskelion. He was dressed in a business suit and was just pinning a tie clip in place when the portal opened behind him. He turned away from the mirror on the bedroom wall, frowning deeply. His already lined face darkened as reality warped and twisted, and Wanda stepped through. As far as he could tell, a goth teenager with too much black eye makeup and silver jewelry was standing there, the red blouse making her appear even paler.

"Are you one of the Baron's miracles?" he asked in an imperious tone. When Wanda didn't answer right away, he let out an impatient huff. "Baron von Strucker?"

Wanda's eyes widened. "You're Hydra."

He looked at her in pity. "You didn't realize that about Strucker?" He laughed and shook his head. "Best to be on the winning side, don't you think?"

She put her hands together, and a concussive wave of red light burst forth. It hit Malick in the chest and sent him flying backward. He hit the mirror, spiderweb cracks forming before it shattered as he fell to the floor.

The shimmering air behind her was still there, and Loki stepped through it with Pietro and Natasha. He looked down at Malick's groggy form with a sneer of derision. "So sloppy. So stupid. By the Tree, this world seriously needs guidance."

"Precisely," Malick started to say, awkwardly pushing himself up. He blinked, and his expression seemed to clear. "You!"

Loki's lip curled and he flicked his hand in a negligent manner. A curl of golden green magic laced around Malick's temples, and he slumped to the ground unconscious. "And yet somehow _I_ was the one condemned?"

"'Cause you were stupid and got caught," Pietro snarked. He ran at a rapid pace, tying up Malick securely and possibly a little too tightly.

In the face of Loki's aggrieved expression and crossed arms, Pietro grinned unrepentantly up at him and stuck up a middle finger. Wanda rolled her eyes at him. "Well, the fact that he's Hydra means we're in trouble."

Natasha looked at his prone form, then back at her with a wicked gleam in her eye. "How are you at mind reading?"

"I can do it."

"While they're knocked out?"

"If anything, it's even easier..." Her voice trailed off. "You're thinking of tracking down this Baron von Strucker he mentioned?"

"He's got to be pretty high up in Hydra to be here. And to know about experimentation that they're doing on people. If we get any intel from him that might not be hidden on the alpha level SHIELD servers, then we can save whoever he's experimenting on."

Wanda let out a breath then nodded. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander into Malick's, sifting through the fragments of memory that were closer to the surface. He had already thought of Baron von Strucker and the bunker where he was working in Eastern Europe with several other Hydra scientists. From there, Wanda could track other scientists working on various human experiments, not all of them in the subjects' best interests. Some of them were buried within SHIELD offices, others were in self contained areas under Hydra control. While she was rifling though his memories, she lifted a hand and began to create a list of the names and places, along with photos of each person as Malick knew them. Because she had been working with Loki, the document she was creating was more like a parchment scrolling as it was coming into existence, each name adding to its length in a smooth roll.

Pietro looked over at Loki. "Okay, I'm impressed. I didn't know she could do things like that."

"It's a matter of creativity and intent."

"She's definitely creative." Pietro looked over at her and almost sighed. "Me? I'm just fast."

"Which is not something to ignore either," Natasha said. "Sometimes that's exactly the thing we need. Like right now."

He pondered that. "How many other Hydra people do you think we're going to find?"

"More than we want to," Natasha sighed, seeing the scroll floating in midair get longer and longer. Its edges were curling, much like the proclamation scrolls of movies, but it was still growing at an alarming rate.

They would soon have to rely on Wanda's portals and Pietro's speed to get to all the committee members. Ultimately, Malick was the only Hydra member aside from Pierce. Natasha could easily replace Councilwoman Hawley, but Councilman Singh absolutely refused to be replaced by one of them. "I don't trust that bastard, I want to see for myself what he does."

Councilman Yen also wanted to be present for the unveiling, more than willing to assume the risk it posed. Pietro replaced Councilman Rockwell. Three other councilmen were replaced with Loki's shadows, enough physical essence to the copies to react as if they were real or manipulate objects. "Good," Natasha said when Loki explained the way the shadow duplicates worked. "I'm pretty sure Pierce will wine them and dine them, lull them in before he lets them know what the plan is. The helicarrier launch is a big deal, after all."

"Literally," Pietro said. He hadn't adjusted the vocal modulator yet, but had changed clothes and placed the photostatic veil on his face. It was odd to see Councilman Rockwell and hear Pietro's accented voice.

"Are we ready?" Natasha asked them all. "Loki and Wanda are our magical backup, and going to protect us from the guards Pierce probably has in place. Let's not strain his magic any further than we have to."

Loki drew a hidden blade from his sleeve, a smile on his lips that looked too similar to the ones news reports had broadcast during the Battle of New York. "I'm adept at hand to hand."

"No death."

He sighed and the blade retreated with a flick of his wrist. "You're no fun."

Natasha lofted an eyebrow at him, then shrugged. "Someone has to be the adult in the room, and right now it's me." She met everyone's eyes in turn. "Showtime."

***  
***


	11. Failure To Launch

Dressed as Councilwoman Hawley, Natasha led the group of councilmen, Loki and his shadows and Pietro behind Pierce. Each were given badges to wear on their collar that granted them visitor's access in the Triskelion. As Natasha had thought, refreshments were served before they met in Pierce's office. It was light and airy, with glass walls and chrome accents to complete the modern look. No one really looked through the walls to the view of Washington, DC below, but Natasha wondered how often Pierce did when he was alone. Did he think of himself as a savior to the people? Or did he simply use Hydra's principles to advance his own position?

She kept her head high and the photostatic veil in place. Pierce could think whatever he wanted, it was his actions that mattered. He used his position of power to subjugate others and maintain his position. It was Natasha's job to protect the vulnerable.

The bombastic history of SHIELD omitted several salient details, such as Peggy Carter's instrumental position in its creation and her mission to protect others. Pierce fully expected the World Security Council to be entertained, and either didn't notice or care that they were bored by the monologue. "Is this something we truly need to know?" Councilman Singh sighed at one point, putting down his glass of champagne.

Pierce looked at him evenly, tension in his shoulders but not in his voice. "Context. We all need to understand the context of a situation, and that will help us to understand what we do."

"Your context is missing quite a bit," Natasha drawled. Councilwoman Hawley had been vocal in the past about being the only woman on the World Security Council, and that more women and minorities should be represented. Old white men didn't make the majority of the world, after all. They shouldn't be the ones to determine its future.

He shot her a magnanimous smile but did answer. Really, that was answer enough.

***

Though Steve broke into the Triskelion with Maria, Tony and Sam to take control of the communication systems, he broke off from their position quickly. "I'm the target," he reminded them when Sam looked at him with a troubled expression. "I'll meet you afterward."

"If you're even still alive," Tony grumbled.

"An iceberg couldn't kill me and Hydra did a bad job of killing me the first time around. This time, we're going to wipe _them_ all out, and it better be for good."

Impressive words. Steve hoped that he would be able to rally others to their cause. He refused to believe that Peggy and Howard's legacy had entirely gone to rot. Gray and Shannon weren't the only two good SHIELD agents he knew, and those would rise to the occasion. If they didn't, or weren't in a position to, he'd burn the whole organization out on his own.

 _Sometimes the little guy can't do it all,_ Bucky had told him once upon a time.

Heading to the comms, Steve had a grim expression on his face. _Just watch me._

"Attention all SHIELD agents," he said into the microphone. No nerves, no second guessing himself. Adrenaline surged through him, and he knew this was the right thing to do. "This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was. It has been taken over by Hydra. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The Strike and Insight crew are Hydra as well. We don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury, and it won't end there. Hydra plans to kill anyone that stands in their way. They must be stopped. I know I'm asking a lot. The price of freedom is high; it always has been. But it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not."

Everyone had to play to their strengths, and he excelled at being a leader and symbol to rally behind. He was part of a team, and he was about to be bait.

He paused, but didn't waver in his convictions. _Come and get me,_ he thought, breaking into a run. _I'll take you all down by myself if I have to. But I'm not alone, and this time we'll get rid of all of you._

***

Tony exchanged a glance with Sam as Steve's voice came over the loudspeakers. "Damn. He's good at that."

"There's a reason why he's still Captain America."

"And nobody in their right mind is going to want to disappoint Captain America."

Sam grinned at him and then nodded toward the flight deck. "Then we'd better get a move on, or _we'll_ be the ones disappointing Captain America."

"You remember how to install the chip?"

"Yup. You take care, man. It's gonna be rough."

Tony nodded grimly and then closed the helmet of his suit. "I'm a man in a can, but I can still get it all done. Aside from the wings, you don't have much armor. On the other side of this, I'm building you a suit."

Taking it as the compliment and bid for friendship that it was, Sam only laughed. "Don't fuck up my aerodynamics, dude. I can really fly in these right now, and that hunk of metal you wear won't let me do that."

Laughing, Tony gave him an exaggerated nod. "I'll keep it in mind. Good luck with yours."

"I don't need luck," Sam boasted. "The bad guys do."

"Oh shit, there's two Captain Americas," Tony teased.

"I do what he does, only slower," Sam replied with a grin. He gave a mock salute and then started running to the flight deck.

Still laughing, Tony headed for his helicarrier.

***

Sure enough, walking out in his Captain America uniform made Steve a target. SHIELD agents he'd never seen before were approaching him with weapons, but there were other SHIELD agents he'd never seen before taking them down. This was essentially a battle for the soul of the organization that Peggy and Howard had created. He wouldn't let their legacy be tarnished by the actions of an organization that should've died with Red Skull.

Fights broke out behind him, and he was tempted to stop and help. That would only interfere with the overall plan, and he knew Sam and Tony needed him to do his part. They were a team, each part of it doing the part they needed to play.

He grinned when he saw that a SHIELD agent pulling an alarm resulted in nothing more than slowing down his own escape. The woman that had been chasing him down knocked him to the ground and hit him in the face with a solid punch, not even disrupting the thick beaded braids in her hair. That was Maria doing her part, making sure new alarms couldn't be triggered.

Looking up at a security camera, Steve grinned and gave her a mock salute. He could imagine her flipping him the bird from her screen.

Up on the flight deck, his grin died. It was in chaos, some men trying to take off in helicopters and others stopping them. In the midst of everything, he saw Tony flying up to the top of one helicarrier. Sam was going down the aisle leading to his.

The Winter Soldier was flinging every agent out of his way as he approached Steve, no matter what affiliation they truly carried.

 _"On va voir,"_ he muttered under his breath, remembering the fight with Batroc on the Lemurian Star. He'd been such a cocky fool there, sure that he was doing the right thing. He might not always be sure that he was doing the right thing, but he knew one thing for certain: he would never be able to kill Bucky.

 _Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky,_ he'd told Natasha. And that had been true in the 1930's and 1940's. Right now, however, he wasn't alone. He didn't have nothing. He had a team, he had a plan, and he had a glimpse of a future.

If he had to, he would drag Bucky kicking and screaming into that future.

***

Hearing Steve's speech was inspiring, and cut off Pierce's next monologue. He seemed nonplused for a moment, long enough for the two actual Councilmen to look at him in disgust. Pierce tugged his suit jacket down, then looked over at all of the Council. "Well, I have to hand it to Captain Rogers, he has a flair for the dramatic."

"You deny his words?" Councilman Singh demanded.

"He's... misunderstood the purpose of Project Insight."

"Then by all means, illuminate us," Natasha said. Councilwoman Hawley had never liked being told she misunderstood something or had missed the point.

"The world needs guidance in order to keep peace. There are all the different nations of the world, the different factions within each nation, each with different interests. It's chaos." Pierce spread his arms wide, as if he was trying to encompass everyone in the world, not just in his glass walled office. "This isn't sustainable."

"That's human nature," one of Loki's copies said.

"Ah, but that's where we need to manage the worst of it," Pierce said. He smiled in his usual charming way, though there was an air of menace in what he meant. "You see, Project Insight is able to predict the actions of people. Millions of them, so we will know how they think, and from there predict what they'll do. We can prevent atrocities before they even happen."

"You're going to prosecute mind crimes," Councilman Singh said, a thread of distaste in his voice. He turned away from Pierce, shaking his head.

"If you could go back in time and assassinate Hitler, wouldn't you?"

"Why is that always the argument for cases like this?" Natasha muttered.

"Eliminate Hitler, you prevent the Holocaust," Pierce told her.

"How about eliminate the culture that allowed Hitler to rise to power?" Natasha pointed out, chin raised a notch. "Otherwise, someone else just fills in the space that Hitler would've occupied, and all that effort in time travel is a moot point."

Pierce inhaled sharply, obviously not used to that argument. Maybe people argued for or against murder in the abstract, but few ever pointed out the societal changes necessary to prevent the rise of a dictator in the first place. That was the harder task, and one that would cause more discomfort to any leader.

"This is stupid."

Pierce looked at Pietro, who was still disguised as Councilman Rockwell. "I'm surprised you feel that way." He seemed genuinely nonplused, and frowned. "But I assure you, we have the best intentions. We know what we're doing and can ensure our best possible outcome."

Councilwoman Hawley was giving Councilman Rockwell a stern look. "Perhaps if you gave more detail for _how_ you plan to do this?"

"It's very simple," Pierce said, settling back into his sales pitch. "The satellites have a very sophisticated algorhythm equipped to evaluate social media posts, likes, traffic across the internet, grades, schoolwork, whatever data trail people leave behind. Combing through all of that data, we can predict future behavior."

"You're talking about mass monitoring and invasion of privacy," Councilman Yen said, clearly horrified by the thought as he recoiled.

"As if China doesn't already do that to its populace," Pierce sneered at him. "All over England and Europe, there are CCTV feeds. We rely on body cams, dash cams, security footage from stores and traffic lights. This is a progression of the monitoring that we already do. It isn't a new idea, and it's not something we should be afraid of."

"Who's in charge of making the decisions on this mind crime?" Councilman Yen challenged. "You don't have the right."

"I absolutely do," Pierce said, lips drawn back into a satisfied smile. "We set the algorhythm, we determine who's the danger to our nation and ideals."

"A nation run by old white men," Natasha drawled in Hawley's best disdainful voice.

"Someone needs to take the reins and bring us back to the glory we used to have," Pierce replied with an easy shrug. "We know what needs to be done, and now we just have to do it."

"This 'we' you keep talking about isn't the US government, is it?" one of Loki's copies said. "It's Hydra. A known terrorist organization."

"Terrorism is such a harsh word for the good that the group has done," Pierce temporized.

"They're just as bad as the KKK had been," Natasha said tightly.

"Well, if you aren't ready to fall in line with the plan, then we'll simply have to find a replacement for you that is," Pierce said, voice grave as he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket. It was chilling to see that usually kind face turn into a hard edged mask; which was the actual mask and which was the real Pierce? It was starting to look more like the harder edged version was the real one.

"You have no right to do this!" Councilman Singh shouted.

Pierce lifted his hand, a small electronic device with a single button on it. His expression was smug, and he looked about ready to press the button. "You'll be the first one replaced, then."

"I'm not following any plan you set." Councilman Rockwell peeled off a photostatic veil from his face, revealing that he was actually a blonde teenager. He laughed at Pierce, then his features began to blur as he ran.

The collar pins were all collected in the teen's hands, and in another moment they disappeared from view. The teen had obviously shifted position, and was grinning at Pierce. "Just try it now," he said, daring him.

Eyes narrowed, Pierce stared at the teenager. "What have you done?"

"Protecting people from you," he said simply, a cheeky grin on his face. "You can't hurt any of us now."

Calling his bluff, Pierce hit the button. The signal detonated the explosives that had been hidden within the pins, which would have blown holes into the chests of each councilman and Councilwoman Hawley, killing them. Pietro had put them into Pierce's pocket, and they now detonated right at his hip.

The explosion shattered flesh and bone in his right hip, causing him to cry out in shock and pain, the detonator falling from his hand. He collapsed to the floor, blood pouring out the gaping wound. The ragged hole extended upward from his hip, exposing part of his gut as well. The real councilmen gagged at the sight and turned away. Loki's copies winked out of existence and Natasha pulled off her photostatic veil.

"Loki? Wanda? Either of you good at healing spells?"

"We're really going to fix him?" Pietro blurted, staring at them in shock.

Wanda rushed in from outside of the office. "I think I'm better at the healing spells."

Loki gestured toward Pierce, still bleeding out, and stepped back. He grasped Pietro's elbow and drew him away from the blood. "I do believe that Agent Romanoff would prefer he stand trial for his crimes against the people. They do like their ceremonies and legalities here."

"It's closure," Natasha said without inflection.

Councilman Yen looked at the others with a wan expression. "I suppose I was still hoping he wasn't like that. That we weren't duped so badly."

"But you guessed," Natasha said in even tones. He nodded, a bleak expression on his face. "Don't be hard on yourself, Councilman. He deliberately set out to undermine the Council. The Project was never discussed, and he wanted to take control of everyone on the planet."

"Well, him and the rest of Hydra," Wanda muttered from her place on the floor. "Malick thought this was a good idea, too."

"Malick," Councilman Singh hissed, lip curling in distaste. "I never liked him."

Wanda's hands were alight with the red glow of her magic, and they hovered over the blasted crater of Pierce's hip. He understood that she was helping to heal him, however painful it was, and held himself very still. She didn't take her eyes off the wound as she said "Can someone restrain him, please? I don't know how well he'll be able to move when I finish the repair so he doesn't die."

"You could always maim him as you go," Pietro offered.

"Pietro!" Wanda chided as Natasha moved to tie Pierce's wrists and ankles with tension wire from her hidden Widow's cuffs.

Loki only chuckled and nodded at Pietro with an almost affectionate glance. "Rather bloodthirsty of you. I approve."

"Of course you would," Councilman Singh said with a frown.

"My home culture is quite different from yours," Loki told him with a smug expression. "They believe in extracting a blood price."

"Then why are you here?" Councilman Yen asked. "Wouldn't they have killed you?"

Smiling thinly at the councilman, Loki icily said "Royal privilege."

Councilman Yen stepped back, eyes widening ever so slightly. "What?"

"Can it," Natasha said sharply, looking between them. She turned back to Wanda as she stood back up. "Is he ready to travel? We're probably going to have to keep him in a safe place if he's going to stand trial for what he's done."

Before anyone could ask what she meant, the sound of explosions began outside.

***  
***


	12. Insight

Tony felt strange as he went through the hangar toward one of the three helicarriers that were being used for Project Insight. God, even the name of it was skeevy now. SHIELD had been the brainchild of Aunt Peggy and Howard Stark, and it had all been corrupted once their hands were off the wheel. Wasn't that the usual way of it? Unless you had someone that truly believed in the thing, understood how it worked, they just didn't care.

Fury cared, but he was legally dead and didn't count anymore. Maybe Maria Hill cared, but he didn't know her well enough to judge. Tony wasn't stupid or crazy enough to want to take over a spy organization, not when Stark Industries nearly died a fiery death with his hands on the wheel. He was an inventor and innovator, not a paper pusher. He didn't have the temperament for that, and was honest enough to play to his strengths.

Right now, those strengths were flying over the heads of SHIELD agents, programmed chip in a protected compartment. Project Insight was going to give Hydra a very rude and very permanent awakening. Hopefully the rest of the world woke up, too.

He wasn't really surprised that people didn't really look up as they ran through the halls. People generally didn't look up anyway, so he didn't have to worry about any Hydra agents shooting at him if they realized what he was doing there. Not that they would, Steve hadn't mentioned him at all. Steve had painted a very bright bullseye on himself, and realistically he shouldn't have taken the third chip. He or Sam could've taken care of that, and then it would've been okay. But no, the man felt personally responsible for a mess he didn't even make, one that he'd been asleep on the ice for, and had to have a hand in fixing it.

If he wasn't so earnest about it, Tony would've wanted to punch his perfect teeth in.

That wasn't entirely fair, Tony had to admit. He was from another time, raised to be useful and to constantly _work._ It wasn't enough to just _be,_ he had this sense of responsibility drilled into him. He had to justify his life and experiences, and Tony felt bad for saying that everything good about him had come from a bottle. His father's work with vita rays in addition to Erskine's formula hadn't created that sense of duty. It had only enhanced it, strengthened the body to match the willpower.

Intimidating, really, but Tony was used to dealing with men like that. Steve didn't try to take advantage, and didn't realize that his legacy was as intimidating as it was. He thought the best of everyone, and simply expected others to live up to his view of them.

And damned if it didn't seem to be working.

The apparent Hydra agents were scrambling to control rooms, but others were stopping them. Even the frail eggheads were getting in on the action, trying their best to stonewall the agents that pulled their guns out to ensure that Hydra's will was getting done.

Tony easily flew over their heads and through the corridors until he got to the control panels. With so much of the electronics devoted to the repulsors and his engine designs – his technology! The nerve of Pierce and his cronies! – there was so much of the lower levels devoted to the power supplies and information decks. The servers were alight and ready to work, just needing the AI to tell them what to do.

"Your new orders await," Tony said, exchanging chips. He snapped the Hydra version and let the broken pieces fall to the gangway. For good measure, he stepped on it, feeling a sense of satisfaction in the resulting crack.

Take that, Hydra. Because if they were doing this, if they infiltrated his father's organization, they were probably involved in Howard's death somehow. He and his old man hadn't gotten along for years before his death, but Aunt Peggy had always been there. She'd put it into perspective as best as she could, and had been there when Howard couldn't. His mother had tried to be a peacemaker, but there was only so much Maria Stark could've done to manage two very hardheaded men intent on believing that they were right.

The road to hell was always paved with good intentions, but Tony was going to help SHIELD claw its way back out, whether they liked it or not.

***

Sam had his wings on but not extended as he walked through the corridors. No one questioned his right to be in the building, which worried him a bit. Why didn't anyone think that a man with a flight suit and odd backpack and no obvious security clearance should be stopped? Was Hydra so entrenched that any stranger belonged? Why didn't someone notice he was there?

He was not going to ponder this apparent good fortune too closely, but it bothered him. Maria Hill might've been at the helm to address security, but he rather doubted that all of this was her doing. "How are we doing?" he asked via their comm units sotto voce.

"Just about there," Tony practically chirped. "Why didn't you just fly in like I did?"

"Because my wings are more like gliders," Sam replied. "I don't have rockets on my feet and hands like you do."

"Well, I'll have to mess with the design, then." Tony sounded positively gleeful at that.

"Man, I just these back, don't screw up my wings."

"No, no," he declared, still sounding delighted. "I'd design all new ones based on the original design schematics that you have. You can keep those for nostalgic purposes. I still have parts of my earlier designs around, too."

The millionaire was crazy, but Sam wasn't going to argue with him on this. "I'm almost as the elevator going up from the landing hangar."

"It's pretty straightforward from there," Tony declared. "Most people around here seem pretty calm, not too many fights."

"Why do you sound disappointed?" Sam asked, sliding into the empty elevator. All the hustle and bustle were in the engine rooms, not heading to the data servers and programming chips. It was all supposed to have been configured months ago, after all.

"I suppose I thought I'd do more saving the day stuff," Tony admitted. "This was easy."

"Don't you dare say that!" Sam chided, leaving the elevator. He jogged toward the central programming unit. "That's a sure fire way to jinx any mission, don't you know that?"

"You're superstitious?" Tony asked in surprise.

Sam wanted to roll his eyes. "Everyone has superstitions. We can't help but think of magic in the face of utter absurdity."

The keyboard and layout for the programming center was exactly as Tony had described based on the schematics he had dragged out of the SHIELD servers. It was easy enough to call up the particular array of processing chips in the central command bank, then slide out the tray to swap out the primary targeting chip. "What do you want to do with the old chip? Study it?"

"I broke mine," Tony admitted. "I don't want that surviving anything."

He clucked in surprise but snapped the chip between his hands. "Okay, I get it. I'll bring the broken pieces with me so no one tries to fix it." He secured them in a pocket and left the area. He decided to extend the wings and fly down from the hangar, grinning all the while. The sheer joy of flight, of having the wind fly past his eyes and whistle in his ears, the ground so far beneath his feet that the petty jealousies of the world were nothing—

A metal hand caught him by the wing as he flew past one of the arrays. "Oh fuck!" he cried as he was swung around in a circle. There was no way he could meet back in the security bay and then head to Maria Hill to monitor the penthouse office that Pierce was in.

The Winter Soldier slammed Sam down onto the decking, wing torn off the pack despite the strengthening spell that Loki had placed on the joints and attachments. It looked like the wing had bent and torn some distance from the joint, actually, so the Winter Soldier broke off the piece that _hadn't_ been reinforced.

Next time, the whole damn wing would have to be spelled.

"Jesus, I'm grounded."

The prior exchanges had been ignored by Steve as he had run from the Triskelion to the launch bays for the helicarriers. "What happened?"

"The Winter Soldier—"

"I'm heading to you," Steve and Tony said. They were coming from their respective directions, Tony from the air and Steve from floors below.

"Steve, head to your carrier and swap those chips," Sam ordered via the comms. "If even one of the prior AI's go live, we're all fucked."

Eyes sharp, the Winter Soldier clearly heard Sam's words. "You're gonna have company," Sam warned him, skittering backward as the Winter Soldier stalked forward.

He was going to die, and he never got a chance to say goodbye to his family or tell—

Tony slammed into the Winter Soldier from the side, knocking him off the edge of the decking and over into the empty space beside it.

Sam could see the metal fingers of that left arm on the edge of the decking, but he wasn't crazy enough to try to do something to him. That was going to be a losing battle before it even started if he could rip a metal wing in half. "Cap, I'm grounded. I'll do what I can here, but you need to double time it to your carrier _now."_ His eyes scanned the horizon to see if Hydra agents were coming forward.

People were running and screaming in the distance, and it looked like some of them were scrambling for helicopters or fighter jets.

Turning back to where the Winter Soldier had fallen off the decking, Sam could see that the fingers were gone. Tony was nowhere to be seen.

"I lost sight of him, Cap," Sam announced. "Be careful."

"I swung around and blasted," Tony said over the comm, "but he swung out of the way and is somewhere on the deck. I lost sight of him."

That put him right back in Sam's territory. Fuck.

He couldn't just stand there doing nothing, so Sam broke out into a jog to look for him. A cry off to his right drew his attention. The Winter Soldier had grabbed an agent in flight gear right out of entering a helicopter and tossed him aside, not caring where he landed. Sam winced at the sight of him getting tossed into a fighter jet's engine, and then it exploded.

Jesus, fuck, they were all going to die and this monster didn't care. How the hell could that possibly be Bucky Barnes in there? Was Steve goddamn crazy?

Sam didn't have a gun, and there wasn't a holster in the pack straps. He had to scramble, searching the fallen agents. Sidearms wouldn't do much, but at least it was better than nothing. He seized one and started shooting toward the helicopter, but the Winter Soldier didn't even flinch when the windshield was cracked by the bullets. He didn't care about his own safety, didn't think of anything but his mission.

How do you fight that kind of crazy? Sam didn't know how.

"He's got a copter, killed to get it," Sam announced. Steve had to know about that. "Whatever you do, get there and get it done."

"Just got to the right hangar."

"Should've let us do this, Cap," Tony groused, and Sam couldn't agree more.

Fighting was breaking out around him. Sam was going to get hit if he wasn't careful, and no one would know he was even there.

Time to get the hell outta dodge and meet up with Maria. "I can't help you, Steve," Sam said into the comm. "I'm heading back to Hill."

"You stay safe," Tony said. "I've got armor, I'll cover him."

A flash of red and gold out of the corner of Sam's eye shifted and blurred out of sight. Okay, that would work. He could head back toward the Triskelion. With Steve's announcement, someone was probably figuring out that their security was compromised. Maria Hill had to be good to be the new Director, but even a good agent could still get overwhelmed and need backup.

His turn to play hero in a new arena.

***

Steve was perhaps regretting his stubborn nature. _Perhaps._ With the conflict swirling around him, his very obvious shield and star on his chest serving as targets for Hydra agents in the Triskelion, Steve was having a little trouble getting to the correct hangar. He had tuned out Sam and Tony over their comm frequency until he heard Sam say that he was grounded. His blood had turned to ice, and his heart stuttered.

 _Not Sam._ What was he going to do if Sam was hurt?

Maybe he punched the next man in the face a little harder than he had to, but he refused to feel sorry about that. That's what he got for being part of Hydra. That had to be expected, and it was the only thing that Steve could do at the moment. Punch a Nazi, put them down, move on to the next target. One of the Hydra agents must have signaled others, because usually the hangars weren't this full. He remembered the tour that Fury had given him, and even at its busiest the hangar hadn't been this full.

Fine. He was full of spit and vinegar and would punch his way through if he had to.

He wanted to cry when Sam said that Bucky killed an agent to get hold of a helicopter. He was going to fly from one hangar to the next, just to get to Steve. He was Bucky's mission, and whatever flicker of recognition that might've been in Bucky's eyes near the overpass would've been wiped clean. Bucky was going to kill him if he caught up, and Steve knew he wouldn't be able to kill him.

Bucky had fallen out of his grasp into the cold of the Alps. The screams still echoed in his ears overnight, the sound like a visceral punch. He was only in this mess because of Steve. If he hadn't joined Steve and the Howlies, if he'd gone home when offered the chance...

Steve pounded in another face as if it was Zola's. Damn that man. Damn the government agents that thought Operation Paperclip was worth the sacrifice of morals. Damn every agent in every agency that hid the past and scrubbed the truth from their personnel files. Once a Nazi, always a Nazi, and they should all have been prosecuted, not coddled.

"Just got to the right hangar," Steve announced over the comms. No need to announce that he'd been distracted by the demons in his head.

"Should've let us do this, Cap," Tony groused. Sam's silence was telling, and all Steve could do was sigh in response.

Okay, maybe he was too stubborn. Weren't they all?

Punching his way through to the elevator shouldn't have been as satisfying as it was. Steve didn't think of himself as a violent man, and he didn't enjoy the thought of hitting others just for the sake of hitting them. Maybe he was just as guilty of othering Hydra the way they othered anyone they felt didn't live up to their ideals. No one was perfect, and he was more than aware of his own flaws even if the rest of the world didn't see them.

Getting out on the correct floor, Steve wasn't very surprised when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. They advanced at the same pace as he crossed the walkway toward the central navigation bank. Because of course there was a walkway over a big stretch of open space. His life began and ended with stretches of empty space, didn't it? Eras of his life, bookended by emptiness and the knowledge that he couldn't fulfill all of his promises.

Steve turned and faced Bucky. He was in his Winter Soldier gear, without the facemask. It wasn't any better, because Steve could see the blank eyes and the dead stare. Yes, he'd been wiped clean, burgeoning memories erased. He'd known that was likely what had to happen, but to see the proof was disconcerting.

Hydra goons had to erase Bucky in order to create the Winter Solider. Because there was no way in hell that Bucky would ever be this soulless, or kill innocent people on another's say so. He killed in war, but avoided civilians.

"I have to do this, Bucky," Steve said, feet planted firmly on the walkway. "You can't stop me."

Bucky had never been able to really stop him in the past, only mitigate the damage. Steve was stubborn as hell, and Bucky had been, too.

How much had Hydra tortured him to carve him out like this?

"You're my mission," the Winter Soldier said. No inflection at all. No memory.

His heart cracked in his chest, because there was no way this wasn't going to end badly.

Steve started walking backward, and the Winter Soldier advanced. No recognition in his empty eyes, no concern for his own safety if Steve decided to break the walkway and have him crash down into the glass flooring that showed the Potomac River and parts of DC below them. The helicarrier was rising, engines whirring.

Even though the Winter Soldier would charge, Steve still turned to run for the navigation terminal. He got as far as ejecting the proper panel when the Winter Soldier was on him. It hurt emotionally as well as physically when the metal fist connected with his back. His fingers twitched, and he dropped the chip he was supposed to insert into the connection. At least the Hydra AI chip was easily grabbed as Steve arched and nearly collapsed from the hit. The Winter Soldier either didn't know what Steve was doing or didn't care.

 _You're my mission,_ the Winter Soldier said with Bucky's face and Bucky's voice and Bucky's dead eyes. It was worse than his nightmares of Bucky falling from the train, screaming and reaching out for him.

Crying out, Steve tried to steel himself from the pain of the metal fist. Maybe that's why he could feel the slide of a knife on the other side of his body. Grabbing the frame of the navigation terminal, Steve curled his body to twist and retrieve Tony's chip. Tony was yelling in the comm, telling him that he was almost there, he was going through the hallways, don't die, don't do anything else so fucking stupid—

 _You're taking all the stupid with you,_ he'd said once upon a time, and he wanted to wail and cry at the unfairness of the world.

Hadn't he sacrificed enough? Why did he have to lose his memories of Bucky, too?

Fingers closing around Tony's chip, Steve grit his teeth, lips pulled back as he snarled and hauled himself up to a standing position. Stab and punch and the empty grunt of effort. "I'm not fighting you, Bucky," he said, slamming the chip into the empty cradle.

Pushing backward, the Winter Soldier skittered back a few steps. That was enough breathing room to slam the drawer of computer chips shut, allowing the navigation terminal to reinitialize its settings, taking the new AI and information into account.

Steve turned and removed his helmet, tossing it aside. "I'm not fighting you," he said. He pushed off the terminal, aware of the helmet falling over the edge of the walkway into the open space to fall onto the glass. Sam and Tony would call him stupid, oh God Natasha would _definitely_ call him stupid, he knew this was dumb, but he couldn't help it.

"I'm with you to the end of the line, pal."

Something shifted in the Winter Soldier's gaze, but he still had those empty eyes and the flat expression. He rushed forward with his fist raised. The most that Steve did was to block the knife, hitting the flesh wrist and making sure that the combat knife slid out of numb fingers to fall into the abyss beneath them. Maybe it wasn't entirely a conscious decision not to fight back, but Steve knew he couldn't hit Bucky. He couldn't fight back, and stood there.

"You're my mission!" the Winter Soldier said. Was Bucky coming through? He sounded upset, and now there was almost a wild look in his eyes.

"Then finish it," Steve said, the next punch driving him to his knees. "Do what you need to do, Bucky. You always took care of me, it's time for me to take care of you."

The metal fist drew back, and Steve closed his eyes. This wasn't Bucky, this wasn't his best friend, this wasn't the man he died for.

Tony must have swooped into the room in that moment, because the whine of the repulsor blast was loud in Steve's ears and the entire walkway shook.

Eyes flying open, Steve's entire body tilted and he fell from the twisted, broken walkway. The railing had already broken somehow. Had Bucky finally broken through the Winter Soldier programming and destroyed that instead?

He was falling, falling, no less than he deserved for letting Bucky fall, for not going back into the Alps, for not sifting through the ice and snow with bare fingers if he had to. Crashing into the reinforced glass, the wind was knocked right out of Steve. His shield was somewhere, out of his line of sight, and he hurt to much to even look.

The Winter Soldier crashed into the glass as well, and Steve could see the flash of red and gold from Tony overhead. "You okay, Cap?" Tony asked. "You look like crap."

Steve tried to laugh, but everything hurt. "Feel it," he said, not sure if Tony could hear it. The earpiece had been in his helmet, after all.

As Steve opened his eyes again, not realizing he had shut them while he laughed, he saw the walkway bend and crash down from the blasted area partway through. It swung down, heading toward the glass where the Winter Soldier had fallen. "Bucky!" he called, forgetting that they weren't quite the same, but weren't exactly different, either. His heart was in his throat, seeing the walkway smash into the glass flooring. It cracked, spiderwebbing out from the point of impact, and the sheer weight of the Winter Soldier trying to stand up was enough to make it shatter. The panic in his eyes was too real, his face too expressive to be that of the Winter Soldier. Was Bucky breaking through now?

Whoever he was now, he was falling through the glass, and grabbed hold of a frame to keep from falling into the Potomac below. Steve slowly shifted as Tony swooped in to pull the walkway out of the glass. More shattered in his wake, but there was less strain on the remaining glass.

"Take my hand," Steve said, crawling toward the Winter Soldier. Bucky. _Him._

Wild eyed and afraid, his lips parted as he clung to the crossbeam. He didn't understand what was happening, and the beam groaned as he started to hoist himself up.

"You gotta spread out," Steve said, voice calm and soothing. "Too much weight on one spot and it'll shatter."

He was twitching away from Tony when he tried to fly in. Steve could hear him make a low guttural sound, more like an animal than a man. "Mission," he said, voice breaking as his jaw twitched. "Can't... fail..."

"I'm right here. You reach for me, you aren't failing your mission."

"Cap..." Tony began in a warning tone, poised to dive in if he had to.

"Hey," Steve said, continuing to crawl closer. He watched the wild wear ratchet up as he tried to process what was going on, pushing down farther on the crossbeam. "Hey. Keep your eyes on me, all right? You remember me?"

"Mission." He sounded almost pitiful, and Steve's heart clenched.

"Okay. We can work with that. Just reach out for me."

"Assets get replaced if they fail," the Winter Soldier said. Matter of fact, tinged with fear. Oh God, no wonder he was terrified.

"No one's getting replaced," Steve said, ignoring the sound of creaking glass and metal around him. He ignored Tony's warning, and pushed himself to crawl forward faster. The beam underneath Bucky's metal arm was cracking, unable to take its weight. These were decorative, not really insulating or load bearing.

Huge design flaw. He planned to complain to SHIELD about that later. What were their engineers thinking? Why would they design a command station for the navigation and information storage in a place like this? It was a safety hazard.

And that walkway? Utter trash.

Steve crept forward, shifting his weight so he could push himself forward, extending his right arm for Bucky to take. "I got you," he promised.

But instead of cracking beneath Bucky, the glass shattered beneath Steve. He tried to lunge forward for a cross beam as the glass parted, but his arms were sliced up as he missed. He was the one falling, beyond the reach of Bucky's flesh and blood arm.

Steve was falling, then was swallowed up by the Potomac.

***  
***


	13. Light 'Em Up

Sam was all but ignored as he ran back into the Triskelion. He knew that Maria Hill was in the security area on the seventy-eighth floor, which was rather ridiculous. Some elevators only went up partway, leading him to zig zag his way through the building. Never having been there before, he had to double back twice to get to the correct set of elevator banks. There was an entirely different security area on the ground floor, and it would have been so much easier if that controlled the security for the upper levels as well. But no, Pierce had to be extra and have an entirely different setup for his suite, the offices that the World Security Council used when they were in the Triskelion, or some of the specialized SHIELD officers.

Apparently the extra he hadn't told anyone was that he was a major player in Hydra.

He liked to say his mama didn't raise a fool, but he was starting to doubt that statement a little.

One elevator bank went from the ground floor to the twenty-fifth. Then there was another set that went from the twenty-second to the fortieth. He had gotten lost on the fortieth floor, because it was an utter maze of cubicles for most of it. Who arranged the floors in this damn building? None of it made logical sense.

The next elevator bank was either hidden, or he was completely missing it. Sam instead to the stairs up a floor, hoping that the forty-first floor was a little bit better organized. It had open office spaces as well as standard offices, and thank God, he could see where the elevator bank was located on this floor.

Its doors opened as he approached, and Brock Rumlow exited. He had knives and pistols strapped to his body, because of course he did.

What kind of luck did Sam have? Fucking bad luck, that's what.

Angry with himself and with Hydra, Sam wouldn't even let Rumlow finish his stupid speech about teaching him pain. "Man, just shut the hell up," Sam snapped. He would attack with his fists and throw his whole self into the fight, and he was sure he could grab a weapon off of Rumlow and beat his ass with it.

Actually, that sounded like a lot of fun.

Sam was going to think of this as boxing sparring or something; he couldn't think of the seriousness of this, that Rumlow would kill him if he got the chance. His adrenaline was up high enough as it was, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes. At least with the man so sure of himself, chatty and demeaning, his attention was split.

Punch and dodge, and Sam slipped in under Rumlow's guard. So full of himself, Rumlow didn't even go for the gun first. Big mistake, but not one that Sam was going to correct for him. They were hand to hand, and he took hits to the face as well as his gut. That sucked, but Sam thought it was worth it. He slammed Rumlow right into the wall, knocking the breath out of _him,_ and he managed to steal a knife. Under normal circumstances he would never even think about murdering someone in cold blood, but this was hardly a cold blooded situation.

Rumlow stabbing him in the shoulder cemented his decision making process, too.

Before Rumlow could stab him again, Sam punched forward with the military grade knife repeatedly. He took the punch and the push, gritting his teeth against the pain. His lips were pulled back in a snarl, and he knew that Rumlow never expected to have someone fight back. He was the kind to swagger in and take charge, expecting others to get cowed by his attitude. Sam had always hated that type, and couldn't find it in him to be sorry for fighting back. Rumlow was Hydra, had wanted him, Natasha and Steve dead on that road. He was the Winter Soldier's handler, the one pulling the strings to make the man go forward and kill. Men like Rumlow didn't care who they broke along the way as long as they remained in charge. Hell, he probably got off on the idea of being in control of the Winter Soldier.

Keeping the knife in hand, Sam stepped back out of range and kicked Rumlow's knees out from under him. "Abdominal wounds are a bitch," he declared. "Gotta get medical help quick, or you can bleed out. And if you don't bleed out, there's sepsis to deal with. It's a very slow and painful way to die, and just what pieces of shit like you deserve."

The man didn't know how to stay down, and had dropped the knife to push himself up to his feet using the wall for support. This time, he wasn't letting his ego do the talking.

This time, he pulled a gun.

"Shit!" Sam blurted, dropping out of sight behind a desk when he saw the gun. Not that it would really provide much cover, but it was better than nothing. Maybe his time was up. The fight on the bridge was a fluke, one man against ten, bringing a knife to a gun fight. His mama would have strong words with him on that one.

He scuttled away from the desk, staying low to the ground as bullets ripped through it. As he'd thought, the desk hadn't done much. Stupid pasteboard crap. He'd've thought SHIELD could afford better desks for their agents than this junk, but they probably ordered it by the pallet and got a discount on the identical desks. Three shots, and he had to assume that the magazine held ten, since it looked like a standard one in Rumlow's hand and not an extended one. Seven more bullets to dodge.

Rumlow was cursing, left hand over the stab wounds. He lurched forward, still cursing. "I'm going to kill you," he shouted. "You'll learn your place in the new order," he sneered. "That's at the bottom, with the dirt you came from." He didn't know Sam's name, didn't even care to learn it. He thought he was so special, so much better than everyone else.

Sam was to the side of Rumlow, who continued to lurch forward where he had seen Sam last. He had one shot to disarm Rumlow, or else those seven bullets would find him.

Taking careful aim, Sam threw his knife at Rumlow. It caught his arm but sailed right past and clattered somewhere on the floor beyond him. Fuck.

As he spun around, Sam ducked low and wove through the desks. He threw himself into Rumlow, shoving him into another desk. He roared in pain as the impact hit his gut wound, and Sam pushed his fist into it, tearing at the hole with his fingers. The angle was too awkward to shoot Sam, so Rumlow was left trying to pistol whip him. It hurt, but Sam focused on the wound beneath his fingers. This went against every oath he had taken as a healer, and something ached in his chest. He grunted in pain with every hit he took, and lifted his left hand to push up Rumlow's chin. Rumlow's left hand was too busy trying to push Sam away, and he hadn't let up with using the butt of the pistol against the back of Sam's head.

Concussions weren't pretty, but he'd live. Sam had to make sure that Rumlow didn't.

Sam shifted his stance to bring his knee up. He stomped down hard on Rumlow's foot, hoping it was enough to break bone through the boot, and let go of the stab wound long enough to grab another knife from a holster. Howling in pain, Rumlow didn't notice. He brought the butt of the gun down particularly hard over Sam's temple, and the pain flared white hot. He saw stars, vision all grayed out.

"Man, fuck you and fuck your white supremacist bullshit," Sam said, moving his left hand and taking a blind swipe toward Rumlow's throat with the knife.

Staggering backward, Sam tried to regain his vision. If God was good, He would let Sam sway out of line of any bullets shot.

As his vision cleared, Sam heard the clatter of a gun hitting the ground. He blinked and looked up, knife still gripped tight in his right hand. Its edge was covered in blood.

Swallowing thickly, Sam looked at Rumlow. He had both hands at his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood. Sam could hear the raspy, sucking sound as he tried to breathe, and knew that he had nicked the trachea as well.

He took an awkward step to the side so he could brace himself on a desk, not breaking eye contact with Rumlow. He wasn't dead yet, after all, and desperate, dying men sometimes had incredible bursts of strength.

But no, this one was a coward and frightened of death. He was sagging down to his knees, not knowing how to stop the blood from pumping out between his fingers. His panic only made it happen faster, a cascade of bright red spilling down his chest.

Sam watched Rumlow die in front of him, chest heaving with every breath. Logically, he knew it had to be done. Logically, he knew he should change frequencies on the comm to talk to Maria to let her know about this. Logically, Sam would be okay.

Emotionally, something was breaking inside.

***

Maria Hill had the full array of security measures in front of her and had manned all of the different comm frequencies. Even so, her rescue team reached Sam too late to be useful. Tony flew off after the eerie pronouncement of "What the fuck?!" before his connection cut out. She'd heard all of the warnings, the sounds of a fight, the declaration from the Winter Soldier that Steve was his mission. She was useless to them at this point, doing nothing more than shooting the Hydra agents that were coming to the security office.

Once the third chip was in place, there was no point in staying. She left, taking a pistol from one of the fallen Hydra agents and casually stepped over the bodies. They were black smudges at the bottom of her vision, and she refused to think of them as people. That would make this infinitely harder to deal with later, and she had nightmares enough as it was.

There was a price to be paid in getting to the top of this agency, like compromised morals, seeing the endless sea of dead in her dreams, and knowing that she held countless lives in her hands. It had felt far more exciting before she had risen up the ranks at SHIELD, when the concept of being Deputy Director and then Director hadn't involved the death and deception.

She ran into the group coming down from the observation deck. Pierce was bound and appeared wounded but stable. The real Councilmen accompanied Natasha and Loki, who were holding up Pierce's bound form, and Wanda took up the rear of the group with her twin brother. "How'd it go?" Maria asked, taking in the weary expressions on their faces.

"It's done, at least," Natasha said.

"We heard the explosions," Councilman Yao said.

"Hydra's Project Insight, I think," Maria told him, knowing full well she was lying to one of the men that essentially were her bosses.

Pierce laughed, a harsh and grating sound. "So you failed. We win anyway because you weren't good enough to stop us."

A golden gag covered Pierce's mouth, and Loki looked rather satisfied with himself for that. "I think we'll all feel better if we don't hear his lies," he told Maria sweetly. At the same time, his expression was a pointed one. _See? I'm not a traitor. I know what I'm supposed to do to help SHIELD agents._

Maria only sighed. The Directorship was a headache, that was for sure. At least Loki was nominally on _their_ side, for however long that would last. She'd seen the same transcripts that Fury had, and knew it was very much contingent on his therapist and partner staying with SHIELD and working with him. After the stunt she pulled with Agent Gray, she very much doubted that he would trust her.

God, she was every bit the bitch her ex-wife had said she was.

"We have holding cells in one of the sublevels," Maria said with a sigh. "The way down from here is going to be a little complicated, but we can pick up Sam on the way. There's a team of agents with him on the forty-first floor."

Wanda frowned. "Insight's cannons can go through buildings, right?"

"I don't think they're programmed to..." Maria said, looking over at Pierce. He was still gloating behind the gag, clearly ignorant of Tony's changes to the AI that Project Insight was going to use as soon as the helicarriers hit three thousand feet. She pressed her lips together unhappily. "I don't know what they're going to do now. Ours could but we didn't use them that way. I doubt the reconfigured AI will, but I don't know the actual programming."

Pierce frowned at the "reconfigured AI" portion of her statement, but Natasha only looked at Wanda. "If we want Pierce to survive long enough to stand trial, we need him in one of those cells. Sublevel three," she added when Wanda gave her a blank look.

"That's our highest level of containment," Maria said in surprise.

"Only the best for an international traitor," Pietro said brightly as Wanda began to move her hands in an odd way. Maria soon saw that she was weaving a portal into existence, her eyes as red as the magic threads coming off her fingers. At Natasha's nod at the portal, Pietro grabbed hold of Pierce and raced through it fast enough that they were nothing but blurs of color.

 _He's fast and she's weird,_ Maria thought in a daze.

Natasha was touching her earpiece and saying something sotto voce, then looked over at Maria with a concerned expression. "Sam and that group are heading down to the ground floor. He needs medical attention."

"I'll meet them down there," she told Natasha. "You should keep an eye on Pierce, see if you can get anything useful out of him before due process has to take place."

Loki lofted an eyebrow at her. "You aren't going to respect the law," he commented.

"The laws never truly apply to men like him, do they?" she replied evenly. "I'm charged with the defense of this country, with the responsibility to keep the world safe as well." Maria's eyes skipped across the group of them. "Where's Agent Gray? I would've thought he'd be roped into this little endeavor."

That made Loki's entire expression turn into a fearful glower. "One we trusted murdered him," he said, voice tight and clipped.

Without realizing she was going to, Maria reached forward and grasped his forearm tightly. "I'm sorry," she said, meaning it. "He's a good man. Was," she corrected. "I know you can't think much of me after that performance in my office, but I was trying to protect the both of you as best as I could."

He drew his lips back, not quite a grimace, and carefully peeled her fingers off his arm. "I see," he said, still in that clipped voice.

"They wanted to _dissect_ you," Maria hissed under her breath, eyeing the portal. "God, if they knew what she could do, they'd want to do the same to her."

Something softened in his expression a fraction. He clearly cared about the girl. Good, at least there would be someone to help him through the mess this was going to be.

"You'd best do what you can to keep this agency from falling apart," Loki said.

"And you?"

Now he was definitely grimacing. "My presence here is contingent on SHIELD being whole. See to it that it remains so."

Natasha had already gone through Wanda's portal, so she ducked her head through and frowned at Loki and Maria still in the hallway. "Loki?"

Loki was still staring at Maria, not moving a muscle. He was waiting for something, and all Maria could do was nod at him. "I'll do what I can," she promised. "And we'll sponsor Miguel's funeral. He was one of us, we should celebrate that."

Jaw tight, Loki nodded. His eyes shone, and Maria thought he looked ready to cry as he followed Natasha through Wanda's portal. That left her alone to head to the lobby, but that was fine with her. She had a lot to think about.

Like with the Avengers Initiative, Fury's ideas about keeping Loki on Earth had been dead on.

Maria had a lot to live up to.

***  
***


	14. Healing

Beaten and sore everywhere, Steve woke up to the sound of unfamiliar music. Cracking his eyes open, he saw Sam sitting beside him, bandages at his temple and his arm held at an awkward angle. He was reading a book and playing music at a low enough volume that the nurses wouldn't get irritated with him. It wasn't one of the harder songs that Natasha tried to get him to listen to. Some of them had interesting lyrics, which possibly said as much about her as it did about him. _I can't drown my demons, they learned how to swim. I'm scared to get close and I hate being alone._

Painfully true, and not something that he wanted to think about now. This wasn't that song, and he turned his head enough to see the screen on the music player that Sam was using.

Ha. It was "Trouble Man," one of the songs he thought Steve should hear.

Steve had definitely been trouble for this man, and it was fitting.

He must've made a noise or twitched, because Sam looked up with a smirk on his lips. "On your left," he said.

Smiling in spite of his pain, Steve managed to chuckle a bit. "Got me lapped this time, huh?"

"Figures it would take a world of hurt to slow you down." Sam put a receipt into the book as a bookmark and put it aside. His shoulder was stiff with injury, and Steve's heart clenched at the sight of it. "Probably shouldn't take a metal fist to the face, though."

"Sorry," Steve rasped. "How'd I get here?"

"You fell in the water," Sam began, shifting his chair to face Steve. "Then he must've changed his mind or memories shook loose or something, because the Winter Soldier dove down into the water after you."

Steve hadn't expected that, and blinked slowly. "Oh."

"He left you on the riverbank, and was starting to walk away. Tony got 'im."

Frowning a little, Steve took in Sam's calm expression. "I'm guessing Tony's okay, since you don't sound upset."

"There's gonna be a bit to catch up on, and I don't even know how to make heads or tails of it right now, to be honest." At Steve's questioning glance, he sighed. "The Winter Soldier's on lockdown in Avengers Tower."

Eyes wide, for a long time, Steve could only stare at Sam. "He's okay?"

"Define okay," Sam snarked, then shook his head. "The man's a mess and there's gonna be a whole lotta cleanup to do. But he's alive. And not in SHIELD hands, just in case."

"Didn't we get rid of Hydra?" Steve rasped, frowning.

"Do you _really_ think it'll be that easy to get rid of them all?" Sam asked archly, eyebrow raised as well. "Those chips with the AI to take them out was programmed to delete itself after the first wave so it won't run amok and keep killing people. So anyone left over can go to ground and hide again."

"Fuck."

"Yeah," Sam sighed. "But I get Tony's reasoning. Can't let it go and potentially take out innocent people that aren't Hydra but just suck. We're not God."

"So the job might not be done."

Sam reached out and grasped Steve's hand, holding it tightly. "You got people, man. You won't be going it alone this time."

Steve smiled at him, not caring if his split lip cracked again. He squeezed Sam's hand. "I think you're just as nuts as I am."

"Yeah, well, you're lucky I like dumbasses," Sam joked.

"And I got a thing for tough brunettes."

"Like Peggy," Sam nodded.

"She was the main one back in the day," Steve agreed, nodding slightly. "She could knock me on my ass and make me see reason when I couldn't."

Looking at Steve carefully, Sam lifted an eyebrow. "One? Were you stepping out on Peggy?"

"Not by myself," Steve chuckled.

"Ho, ho," Sam chortled in delight. "You have stories from back then, don't you? History books never talked about that."

Taking a breath, Steve let it out slowly. "Or... we could make up some together."

Sam blinked in surprise, then a smile slowly curled across his lips. "So you _were_ coming onto me when we were jogging."

Steve winced. "Maybe? I'm so bad at this."

Laughing, Sam shook his head. "Man, you're so lucky I like dumbasses."

"I have been known to be dumb," Steve offered, a thread of hope in his voice.

With his free hand, Sam gestured at Steve's body in the hospital bed. "Case in point."

With a weak chuckle, Steve nodded. "Hopeful, maybe? Too hopeful?"

"Definitely too hopeful. But it worked out. Got your ass beat to prove it, but yeah, it worked out enough that some of the memories of Bucky Barnes came through."

"And you and me?" Steve asked, voice cracking. "I don't know where I'm going from here. Not working for SHIELD, that's for sure."

"You've got time to figure that all out."

"It's just, you have your job in DC, and I don't feel like I belong there," Steve insisted.

Sam's smile was sad, and he shook his dead. For a moment, he was silent, and Steve guessed that there was a story of his own to tell. "Is this one of those near death experiences that makes you realize what your priorities are?" Sam asked finally.

"I think I just didn't know how to put it into words."

Sam smiled and shook his head ruefully. "What is it about stubborn white boys that makes me want to get involved?"

"Meaning I'm your type?" Steve asked, eyes lighting up with hope.

"Absolutely my type." He smiled fondly at Steve and squeezed his hand. "And here I am, already caught, hook, line and sinker."

"I can stay in DC for you," Steve began.

"Go to New York. Tony's got a place set up for you." Sam squeezed his hand. "DC and NYC aren't that far apart, you know. And when my contract's up, we'll see."

"But—"

"There's this thing called the Avengers Initiative," Sam continued, lips curling into a smirk. "Ever heard of it? Apparently some super powered and insane individuals that think they can change the world all work together or something. So if a pair of experimental wings got fixed, or even upgraded the way Tony promised..."

Steve laughed in relief. "That's good. That's real good."

"We're gonna be coworkers," Sam began.

"And hopefully more than that."

"Sweet talker," Sam replied, eyes dancing. "Maybe. We'll see how it goes when you get outta here, man. Dates in a hospital cafeteria are no fun, let me tell you."

"Lots of places in the city," Steve said with a smile. "I can't wait to show you all of 'em."

Sam lifted Steve's hand to his mouth and kissed the backs of his fingers. "Heal up, and we'll see what happens next."

***

Natasha walked up to Steve, who was standing in the middle of one of the Tower common rooms, a lost expression on his face. "Hey," she said quietly.

He turned, eyes sharp as he took in the casual clothes and thick manila folder tucked beneath one arm. "What's that?"

She handed over the file. He saw Cyrillic lettering across the front of it and frowned as he opened the cover. The photo paper clipped inside was Bucky's wartime photo, and there were also pictures of him in cryostasis.

Steve looked up, a chill through him. "Natasha?"

Her smile was faint and sad, her eyes like deep pools of murky water. "I pulled a few strings to get that shipped here from Kiev. Be careful if you pull on that thread," she said softly.

"Kiev. Were you stationed there once?" he asked, his entire body and his voice gentle. She was offering him something in her usual multilayered way. This wasn't his kind of language, but he was learning his way around it.

That faint and sad smile didn't falter. "Something like that. The training that I had started as a child continued on as an adult. You know that," she began. Her expression dimmed and she licked her lips, eyes skipping across his features to take in his response to her words. "It was dirty work, no matter how you look at it, and it was all I knew."

He nodded slightly, a silent urge for her to continue. Bucky's face beneath an icy glass pane haunted him, and she knew more than what she was telling him.

"I wasn't the only one trained," Natasha said quietly. She licked her lips again, which was odd because he didn't think she had any nervous tells. The soft pink of her lipstick was going to be licked off if she kept that up, but Steve didn't want to break the spell.

"The best of us, the ones with the most kills, we were often sent out for specialized training," she said, each syllable soft but landing heavily on his ears. These were death knells tolling, a list of the dead stretching out since her early childhood. Her lips twisted in a grimace of a smile as she nodded toward the file. "Don't be surprised if you see my name in there."

"Natalia Alianovna Romanova," he murmured.

She nodded, eyes empty and haunted. "I translated for you, but you can easily find another translator if you don't trust what I did."

"Of course I trust you."

His immediate reply surprised her, because there was a slight narrowing in her eyes that would've likely been a flinch from someone less able to school their features.

"I'm glad you do."

Steve snapped the folder cover shut, closing the distance between them in a single long step as she flinched at the sound. He grasped her shoulder, remembering when Bucky once did this for him when he was cowed and trying not to collapse in on himself. _I'm with you 'till the end of the line,_ Bucky had promised, and he had gone as far as he could.

"I don't pretend to understand everything you've been through," Steve told Natasha, voice soft and gaze earnest. "It's more trauma than I know what to do with when I haven't dealt with my own shit. I'd be a hypocrite to tell you to talk to me when I don't even know how to talk about what's in my own head. But I'm safe, Natasha. I'd never talk about your issues without your permission. And whatever you want to tell me, I can take it."

Her sad smile softened the features of her face. "No, I don't think you can."

"Try me," Steve challenged.

That didn't lighten her gaze, but there was a challenge there as well. "You'll see mention of him being tapped as a teacher for the Red Room program."

"Your training program," Steve guessed when she stopped.

Natasha nodded sharply. "I was a teenager at the time." Her chin lifted a notch. "For my culture, I was a consenting adult."

Steve blinked in surprise, knowing full well what her words meant. He swallowed, seeing the tension in her jaw, her stance. Hell, he could feel it in her shoulder beneath his palm. "He treated you well?" he asked, voice raw.

The tension bled out of her and she nodded slowly. A suspicious sheen graced her eyes. "As best as he could, given the circumstances."

He smiled fondly. "Trust Buck to always have it easy with the ladies, even if he can't remember who he really is."

She snorted. "Look at the data," she told him, eyeing the folder tucked under his arm. "He's strong. They had to completely wipe him and put in trigger overlays because his personality was so strong. They had to break him to get him to do their bidding."

"You came back from it."

Reaching up to clasp her hand over his, she gave him a sad smile. "Depends on how you define it, Steve. Some things can't be fixed."

"I'm not the same guy I was when I went in the ice. He's gone into his own kind of ice, so I don't expect him to be who I remember, not exactly. But he was always there when I needed someone, and never let me stay alone when I was hurting." He offered Natasha a watery smile. "What kind of friend would I be if I didn't return that when he needs it?"

"If he never remembers?"

Steve shook his head. "He remembers something, and that's good enough for me. We can restart, help each other through."

"Be gentle, Steve. This is going to be a tough time for everyone."

"I take care of my family," Steve promised. "He's always been that, and you've become my family, too."

The startled expression was unguarded and genuine, making Steve want to curl in a ball and hide in a corner to cry. They were all so damaged here, weren't they?

The folder dropped out of his grip as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. She hugged him back just as tightly. There was so much pain, so much misery throughout the years, so little hope of it ever getting better.

A fragile thread was in front of them, and Steve intended to grab hold and hang on for dear life.

***

Natasha sat next to Clint on his worn couch, her head bowed. It was similar to her posture when they were on the helicarrier just prior to joining the fray that became the Battle of New York. She was scraped raw on the inside, exposed in a way that she didn't feel comfortable showing anyone else. His bow-roughened fingers traced over her outstretched palm, which rested on his thigh. He had his head bent close to hers. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"You were on mission," she said quietly. "You're not always here with me."

"I didn't _have_ to go to Lebanon."

"Yes, you did."

"Okay," he sighed, clearly wanting to avoid an argument when she was at her most stubborn, "I should've turned it down. I could've avoided the firefight to get out."

"But you made it back." _To me_ went unsaid, and she swallowed thickly to keep from blurting them out just the same.

"This hurts you."

"I got a lot of my memories back. From before," she clarified, still not looking up from their hands. Her other one was fisted at her side. "He doesn't have them yet."

"The Soldier, you mean."

"I'm sure it'll be kinder now. No need for meds or sleeplessness. Wanda and Loki think they can use magic to get into his head. Especially Wanda. She's got an affinity for mental magics and a lot of that weird stuff."

This was rambling for her, but she couldn't help it. She was unraveling, untethered.

"You want me to check on him for you?" Clint asked, tone as hushed as hers had been.

Natasha shut her eyes. "I can't ask you to," she demurred.

"You're not asking."

They fell into silence. It wasn't awkward, not when their very breaths were in sync and she was fairly certain that their heartbeats were syncopated. Tears slipped out and she didn't bother to hide them from Clint. "I know how he must feel, and I wish I didn't. The confusion and pain, the anger. The withdrawal," she added, bitterness in her tone.

"This isn't something you can fix."

"If I had ever gone looking for him..."

"He's a ghost. You can't track down a ghost story."

She opened her eyes and lifted her head enough to meet his gaze. "You found me."

"You were never supposed to be a ghost, Nat. There might not've been a _you_ if they had their way, but you were always supposed to be real." Clint brought his free hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "You've always been more than what they wanted you to be."

Natasha's tears were hot on her cheeks as she dipped her chin down in acknowledgement. "I don't know how I feel."

Clint's expression didn't change. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You should," she told him, bitterness creeping into her tone as her control slipped. "I'm only going to be your nightmare. I'm trouble."

He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tears. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a trouble magnet." He smiled as she let out startled laughter. "I told you before. Those weren't one night stands."

She was very still. "Why don't you think they were mistakes?"

"I regret nothing. I don't think you do, either. But this is harder than you thought it was going to be, and it's going to be even harder when triggers are pulled out of his head."

Natasha grasped his hand tightly. "What if he remembers?"

"What part? Falling in love back in Russia? Or shooting you?"

She didn't quite flinch, but it was almost a nod. "All of it."

"Then you sit down like grown ass adults and talk about it."

"Clint..."

"He was the one choice you could make on your own, and it sounded like you were his. You understood each other, and it was the one comfort you had when those bastards tried to tear you down and rip apart your minds. Right?" He waited until she nodded, biting her lip. "Then don't you dare feel sorry for the one spot of happiness you could give each other."

"What if he wants that back?" Natasha asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

"I don't own you," Clint said quietly, eyes locked to hers. "And you don't own me. If you want me to, I can step away."

"I don't want you to," she said immediately. "I want what we have."

He grinned widely at her, relief and joy in the lines of his face. "Good. I want that, too."

"But him... I never got closure. He was just gone. I don't know what I feel about him. And if he remembers and expects to pick back up..."

"Things aren't that simple, and I doubt it's going to be as bad as you think," Clint murmured, leaning in so that their foreheads touched. "It usually isn't."

"Fear keeps me sharp. And alive."

"And it's hard to break out of." He cupped her cheek. "Lean on me if you need to, Nat. I'll be here, I keep telling you that. Whatever happens, I'm not going anywhere."

Uncurling her fist, she covered his hand on her cheek with hers, nodding slightly. "I told you, Clint. I've been compromised." Her lips curled into a soft smile. "I'm not going anywhere, either. This is what I want."

"Then stop borrowing trouble. We'll deal with it when we deal with it."

Natasha nodded again. "Okay. I'll try not to worry too much."

Clint tilted her face up and kissed her, a slow meeting of lips and a gentle swipe of tongue until hers parted. She held onto him and he kept kissing until they both had to draw breath. "I'm here, Nat. Whenever and however you need me."

 _Is this love, Agent Romanoff?_ Loki had sneered once upon a time.

This was more than love, and always would be.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song lyrics that Steve thinks of are from "Can You Feel My Heart" by Bring Me The Horizon, which I heard in a Melinda May fanmix. Very fitting for Steve, too.
> 
> And with this, I think we're free from the MCU! In this world, there's no Ultron, and no Civil War. The galactic issues are still happening, in terms of the GOTG movie events, but that's all off world so we don't see it. Ragnarok events will also shift, because Odin isn't locked away on Earth in a nursing home unable to fall into the Odinsleep, sapping his energy and releasing Hela. This means we also unfortunately don't get to meet Valkyrie.
> 
> ...at least, not the way the MCU had it. ;)


End file.
